Starving Artist
by love-fool
Summary: When one girl's universe comes crashing down, she reacts in the most unimaginable way possible and comes crashing down along with it. [Chapter ten is up]
1. Nothing really matters

[Disclaimer: I do not own Degrassi: The Next Generation. That is all.]

The tumbling of her fingers against the wooden wall was enough to make a person go mad. She drummed them against it over and over again. The tapping could be heard in the room next to hers and was making the other person in there go insane. All they could hear was a repetitive tapping noise as well as the faint sound of depressing music float through their ears. Unfortunately, she couldn't stop the tapping of her fingers against the hard wall. It was the only thing she could depend on the moment, the sound of her fingers resounding against the wall. She couldn't depend on the fact that her music was going to keep playing. No, it would eventually stop because the batteries in her stereo would eventually become dead. 

Dead.

She felt so incredibly dead inside. Well, not exactly dead, more like incredibly empty. Everyday her face would be painted with a vast portrait of nothingness. It was like an artist painted the canvas the color it already was. It looked as though there was nothing on it. It looked as though her face was empty. If she had no nose, eyes, lips, or cheekbones it wouldn't matter. The same expression was worn on her face everyday. It was like she was a china doll, incapable of moving her face to make different facial expressions. 

Finally, a knocking that wasn't her own thrashed against the door to her room. She wearily stood up and headed towards the door. Oh, the long days of being alone and bored out of her mind. They called this therapy? It was more like incredible mind-boggling torture that made her take a step farther out on the cliff of insanity with each growing day. They honestly called this therapy? The psychotic people who thought of this concept were more in need of therapy than she did. There was nothing wrong with her. Why did everyone think that? 

"Come in," She ordered with a sigh escaping her lips.

The door swung open and a woman dressed in hospital scrubs trotted in. The woman's red hair was smoothed back into a ponytail that flowed from the top of her head. Her piercing blue eyes stood out in the dark of the room and matched the bedding. The blonde in the corner retreated to her bed as the nurse approached it. A plastic smile adorned her face while a scowl was plastered on the blonde's. There was no reason for her to be smiling. Those…people she used to trust thought she had a problem. She didn't have a problem. She knew she didn't have a problem. What would possess them to think she did? She was perfectly normal.

"You didn't come to your group therapy session today," The nurse told her while fishing out a stack of small papers from her pocket. "It's your birthday today, you knew that right?"

The blonde rolled her eyes while snorting, "Yeah. What a way this is to spend my birthday."

"Would you rather be dead," the nurse questioned in her same cheerful manner.

"Anything would be better than being here," the blonde scoffed. "I can't believe they thought I have problem! They don't know anything! I don't have a problem! They have a problem if they think that I have a problem. I mean, why did they even think that? They're the ones out there being all wrapped up in their…stuff! I'm always right!"

The nurse sighed as she handed her the stack of papers from her jacket pocket, "They made cards for you during the session. Fiona reminded everyone that it was your birthday and your anniversary."

"Fiona can go pound salt," the blonde offered bitterly. "And what's my anniversary? What are you talking about?"

"It's been a month, Emma," the nurse informed her with a slight smile. "We're really proud of you. Everyone knows what their first month was like. It wasn't exactly the best month of their life, to put it softly. But we think it'd be more helpful if you'd come to your sessions. It really does help, whether you want it to or not. It's just that sitting in your room all day while sitting in the corner and zoning out to depressing music is all you do. It's not very productive."

Emma was rather offended by the nurse's suggestions. Who was she to say whether or not Emma was being productive? She didn't even have a problem. There was no way in hell that Emma Nelson had to be sent to drug rehab. Yet, she was here. Her so-called "friends" felt the need to ruin her life and send her into a clinic full of former druggies. Emma didn't belong here with all of these people who had made the moronic decision to intoxicate themselves with various illicit drugs. 

"Who are you to tell me if I'm being what your definition of 'productive' is? I don't even belong here. I am not some scum of society that should be sheltered from everyone else," She screamed angrily. "Damn it, I'm not supposed to be here! I'm supposed to graduating high school right now…_at this very moment!"_

The nurse was quite shocked by Emma's aggressive behavior and blinked, "Calm down, Ms. Nelson. Just please, calm down. It's okay that you have a problem. That's why you're here, so it can be fixed."

"_I don't have a problem_," She screeched angrily while tears gathered in her eyes. She plopped her head on to the pillow and buried her face into it. Maybe if she kept it there long enough, this would all go away. Maybe she could magically float away to a place where everyone wasn't accusing her of having a problem. Then they would all be groveling on their knees for forgiveness because their deluded minds told them that she had a problem. She was right. She was always right. 

A soft closing of the door passed through her ears. Why? Why was she here? She didn't have a problem. They were all wrong and idiotic for not believing her. This wasn't where she belonged. Right now she should be at Manny's graduation party bragging about her college majors and grades. But why would she have gone to Manny's moronic party? There was no point. Everyone would be there for Manny and not care about her. It was always like that. She would go unnoticed for her keen observations while everyone else ogled at Manny. 

It was the most idiotic concept known to mankind.  It was almost as idiotic as being forced to spend a rather lengthy period of time in this hellhole. Well, it was idiotic to Emma, anyway. The world just appeared to be against her. No one appreciated her or cared. She wanted them to, as much as it didn't show, she did. This harsh reality of the world wasn't a pretty picture to paint. And Emma needed to manipulate the picture for it to appear beautiful. Unfortunately, she lacked that ability. So she instead stopped looking at the painting and drifted off into her own painting. The colors and shapes of it helped her escape the repulsiveness of the other painting of reality. 

It all added up to the fact of her being here. Somehow the paintings collided into each and the colors mixed together and dripped off the canvas and formed a puddle of disaster. Those two years of focusing on her own painting brought Emma to where she was today. Her need to have her own picture was the cause of her undoing. Reality was altered and her own parallel universe was formed. 

Two years of living in that universe wouldn't really do another person any good. Disruption was caused and everything had been completely changed for the absolute worse. And Emma saw that there was no problem. There was no reason for her to be locked up in a rehab center with a bunch of supposed lowlifes. This wasn't the way that things were supposed to be for an eighteen year old girl.

Yet they were.


	2. It's my life

Lunch was such a waste for Emma. There seemed to be no point in eating. Lately though, there seemed to be no point in anything. Every event in Emma's life seemed to be just part of a sequence of a story that ended with her death. But, she was the writer of her own story. If her supposed friends and family hadn't taken her pen away from her, she'd still be writing the part where the little blonde feminist was shooting up with the college aged addicts that lived a block away from her. Of course, those wretched people who were close to her; like her mother, Toby, Chris, JT, and Manny decided that she shouldn't be writing that in her book. No, it wasn't a good thing! Who were they to tell her whether or not she was supposedly harming herself? It made her feel better! 

As she robotically moved her fork around her plate to make designs with her food, she heard the chatter of those…_druggies at the other side of her table. One of them included her room mate, Fiona. Every time those people so much as glanced at Emma, she was reminded of how she shouldn't have been there. She wasn't one of __them.   
  
 "Does she talk," a rusty haired man asked Fiona. "She's been here a month and I haven't ever heard her say a word."_

The brunette shook her head, "No, Doug. She's never said a word to me. I guess she really couldn't relate to me though." Fiona let out a meek chuckle as her blue eyes fell upon Emma. "I was too much of a wimp to do the hard shit like she did. And I found out she was a really good student at Degrassi, I wonder what would have possessed her to do it."

Doug looked up at her and let out a massive sigh, "Well, have you tried talking to her?"

The blonde's ears perked up at the sound of her name. There they were again, talking about her as if she were some pathetic mute. There seemed to be no point in anything anymore. The pain was coming back, all of that emotional pain that had caused her to drift over to the dark side. She had to bottle up and sell it to people on the street for forty cents a pop. Or maybe she could sink into the paradise island as the effects of her savior drug diffused through her body. Unfortunately, drugs were supposedly bad. And no one really wanted Emma to be bad. Oh, pure Emma couldn't intoxicate herself with the demonic drugs. Pure Emma would then have no other way to escape her emotional prison.

Heroin good for Emma. Emma need heroin. Emma slowly going crazy without her beloved. 

_"Oh thank god, you're alive, Emma," a concerned Manny cried as she adorned the side of Emma's hospital bed and tears streamed from her face. "I…can't believe you! If you have problems, you can talk to me about them!"_

_"You could've killed yourself," Toby pointed out as he stood on the other side. "What were you thinking?!"_

The voices buzzed around Emma's head and streamed through her ears like a river tearing through the rolling country side. These memories were taunting her. It reminded her that everyone was truly against her. It was that way since she was younger. No one could possibly appreciate Emma Nelson for raising the most money for the "Save the Whales" fundraiser. They all were brainwashed into thinking that she was peculiar and should avoid her like the plague. 

"Why are you staring at me," Emma snapped viciously at Doug and Fiona. "Do you think if you stare at me long enough, I'll do a trick?! Are you _people_ amused by simplistic things like that? God, why am I even here? I don't belong here!"

The rusty haired man cleared his throat, "Emma, darling, we all have our reasons for being here. Everyone is here to help you."

With those words escaping Doug's lips, Emma stomped off while her stomach let out an earth shattering grumble. Eating wasn't that important. Heroin was more important. Her dreams seemed to be drenched in the drug as visions of needles danced across her eyes. This intense desire was seizing her body like a contagious disease that spread through your body at an alarming rate. 

Withdrawal was such a horribly unattractive thing to Emma. It was an absolute anguish as well. Her needs and her wants seemed to fuse together to form a horrid monster that took over her body. The old Emma was just a mere echo lost in heroin flooded cave as the new Emma slowly crawled out of the cave and made her debut. Emma didn't notice this complete change in herself. All she would notice was how many days it had been since her savior had diffused through her veins. Of course, this seemed to be the last time that this was going to happen. All of those traitors in her life thought that she needed help. No, no, no, _they_ needed help! It was them who had those tainted thoughts of Emma being an addict. Why were they being so critical? This was the way she was living her life and they should accept it. Plus, it was a better way than theirs. Unlike them, she could float away from the emotional pain that was buried deep inside her. 

After the lunch incident, no one bothered talking to Emma after that. It seemed a bit too risky, since she was practically a time bomb waiting to go off at any second. There was no timer, just someone lighting the fuse. None of them wanted to be person responsible for the tragedy. Of course, there was that one person who had assembled the dynamite to be used for a bomb. And only that one person could pry it apart back into the separate materials. Of course, this person probably couldn't be bothered for such a thing. They were too busy with themselves. It seemed as though everyone was too busy for Emma. Emma didn't matter. She wasn't anyone's top priority. Maybe this was how her inadequacy complex was conceived. 

Her fingers gripped around her pillow as a river of tears ran down from the mountains known as her eyes. It had been thirty six days since the heroin had filled through her veins and opened the door that led away from the pain and anguish of reality. Her depression led to her addiction which somehow led to withdrawal which in turn led to even more depression. Emma wasn't strong enough to stop this vicious cycle. It felt as though during this period in her life, she had been running in a hamster's wheel, attempting to run towards bliss. Alas, that never happened for the blonde environmentalist. What _was_ bliss though? There was absolutely no universal definition for it. It seemed to be different for every single person. This concept aided in Emma justifying her "problem". If that was the way she achieved bliss, then so be it. It was _her life. Sure, her mother and biological father aided in making it, but she was the ringmaster of the Emma Nelson three ring circus. _

"It's my life," She sobbed into her pillow. After attempting to collect herself, Emma grabbed a piece of paper and a pen off of the night stand. It took her a minute to actually remember why she was holding then raven black pen and paper in her hand. Finally, it clicked in her head. With the pen to paper, Emma scrawled down her thoughts on it.

_June 23rd _

_It seems as though I'm the main attraction of this freak show. It's been exactly thirty three days since I've been here, thirty six days since I last shot up. I feel as though I've just jumped off a canyon wall and I'm waiting to hit the rock bottom of the canyon. I haven't eaten in three days, simply because there is no point. It seems as though there hasn't been a point to anything in my life. Well…there were those days where I was a happy person in junior high. Nothing was really complicated back then, except the whole Sean thing. But everything went down hill since then. _

_It's somewhat painful, recalling all of these memories and what not. So let's just have a cliff notes version. There is nobody there for me. There was **one** **person**, but obviously he has more important things to worry about than me. _

_I wish I had some matches, so I could burn this piece of paper to prevent anyone from reading it. Also, I could burn down this hellhole and escape. _

Instead of set ablaze to the loose leaf paper, she started shredding it into many pieces. With each piece of paper that had been ripped, it made Emma feel a tad better. Nothing could make her achieve her state of absolute bliss that she yearned so much for. No, the exit on that one way highway had been passed eons ago. As she stared at the shredded paper that had danced across the wooden floor, she picked up then pen. With the pen in hand, she drew a rather large "S" on her arm before collapsing on the bed against her tear-soaked pillow.


	3. Need to dream

It's quite amazing, how the human mind works. It can retain information on how cell transport works yet aid in forgetting where you put your car keys. It's also quite amazing how vague memories of incidents can somehow stealthily creep into your subconscious. It could be compared to how food dye diffused throughout a glass of water. 

Emma tossed and turned in her sleep as these memories crept through her subconscious and lit up her dreams. She was stuck in a realistic dreamland that took place on the corner of subconscious and conscious. All of these vivid flashbacks made a rather addled Emma feel as though everything that was taking place in her deep slumber was real. Well, yes, it was real, but it felt as though everything was happening allover again. It was as if she had watched a movie over and over again. 

_"So, why are you here, Nelson," a masculine blonde figure asked as Emma and him sat in neighboring lawn chairs. It was Emma's sophomore year at Degrassi and somehow JT had convinced her to come to the "most happening party" of the year with him. Unfortunately, the girl that JT had his eyes on was there and with Emma's consent, he had trotted off to talk to her. At that point, Emma was ready and raring to go home. Of course, she was then reminded about how the only reason she went to the party was to get away from her crumbling household._

_"Please, don't refer to me by my last name," Emma rolled her eyes while daintily playing with a strand of limp blonde hair._

_"Fine, fine," he growled. "Why are you here, **Emma**?"_

_"I have no clue why you're suddenly interested in why I'm here. I never really thought it had any effect on you," Emma stated somewhat callously while lying back in the lawn chair, a bit too much. She soon learned the durability of the chair and how far to lean back in it when it flipped over with her in it. This caused her male companion to let out a hearty chuckle before glancing over the side of his chair._

_"Are you okay," He questioned while making a feeble attempt to stop laughing as Emma tried to get up. "I don't think your chair likes you that much. Like I was saying, what brings you here? Don't you have that environmental marathon thing to be studying for?"  
  
_

_"That would be next week," Emma informed him. "But yeah, I'm here because JT practically begged me to go with him."_

_"Really," the blonde raised an eyebrow. "So, you got the hots for him? Wait, wait, wait, he has the hots for you?"_

_"No," Emma pointed out. "He actually ditched me with my permission for that Hillary Jones girl from __Arizona__."_

_"Smart man," he nodded while running a hand through his messy blonde hair as he slid down from the tacky avocado green lawn chair next to Emma, who was sitting Indian style on the dewy grass. "Every guy who likes chicks likes Hillary." _

_His last statement made Emma feel slightly inadequate at the moment, but she quickly brushed it off. Plus, she couldn't go home and sulk about it, since it was too loud in her house for her to sulk. _

_"Thanks for that confidence boost," Emma chimed sadly. "God, it seems as though all guys want is a girl who is deemed attractive. Has the concept by the name of 'personality' been discovered by you yet?"_

_"Are you like...PMSing or something," He asked curiously. "You take things way too seriously, more than usual. Do you have a stick wedged up your ass or something?"_

_At this point, Emma felt like brutally murdering this complete idiot. Her blood was boiling throughout her veins and ready to melt the polar ice caps and drown the world. The fact that he had even approached her was simply beyond her. _

_"Why are you here," Emma narrowed her eyes at him. She was filled to the brim with annoyance at this point. "Don't you have that girlfriend of yours around here somewhere?"_

_He looked at her with a dumbfounded expression and shook his head, "She's sick right now, it's not fun when she's sick. Yeah, I'm here hanging with friends. Such an exciting life I lead, I know."_

_"I barely know what an exciting life would be," Emma muttered under her breath while twisting a piece of blonde hair around her finger. Her companion stared at her for a minute, as this look of anxiousness washed over her. The twirling of her hair became faster and faster.   
  
_

_"Whoa, whoa, whoa," He chimed while practically tearing her arm off by getting her hand away from her hair. "You know, you're going to pull a clump of hair out, scream, and possibly kill me in the process." As he held her hand so she wouldn't feel the need to go into her nervous habit again, there was some kind of peculiar feeling that diffused through him. "Is…something wrong?"_

_"No shit, Sherlock," Emma replied acrimoniously without looking him in the eye. The blonde boy glanced over at her with a look of concern in his eyes. Even though he wasn't particularly fond of the girl and her controlling tendencies on how everything had to be absolutely perfect, he still was a human who had a single shred of sympathy. However, this sympathy could be compared to a single crumb that broke loose from a cracker. Out of all the sympathy he could possibly give her, he was giving her only a crumb of the cracker. _

_At least it was something._

_"Oh, that probably sucks," was all he could possibly offer the lanky blonde girl next to him. "I mean, my parents fight sometimes and that sucks. My girlfriend is a bitch to me at times and that sucks. Things just kind of…suck sometimes."  
  
Emma rolled her eyes while sending him a vicious glare that could kill a person if they were to look directly in her flaming eyes. He got rather scared about how her eyes were completely pulling at his heart and making him feel actual **sympathy** for Emma. Though she had the tendency to be a complete anal retentive bitch at times, there was something that just tugged at his heart._

_"Oh boo fucking hoo," She snapped while her words dripped in acid that would burn the thickest skinned person. "You honestly think that you have it worse off than me?! Let me give you a reality check. There are people worse off than the both of us! There are people starving in third world countries and you go off and complain when you don't have any damn cheese doodles in the house! I very well know you're type, you take everything for granted! You can't even appreciate what you have. And for that, you are a pathetic materialistic bastard."_

_The blonde guy looked at Emma with a completely deadpanned expression on his face. How dare her, seriously! He did appreciate things! And she was just some psycho wench who he had to stop feeling sympathy for before he wanted to jump off a cliff. It seemed as though Emma was playing some kind of sick mind game with him; tricking him into actually handing her a speck of compassion for free. He just couldn't believe her complete audacity. But for some twisted reason, it was kind of…refreshing. Okay, what the hell was going on?_

_"At least I'm not tricking people into giving me sympathetic bullshit all the time," He retorted though his voice lacked the conviction of an actual hate filled comment that one would serve on a poison covered platter. "Yeah, I know shit has been tough for you lately. I know that with Mr. Simpson dying and Chris moving that you've been kind of down lately. I know. But you don't have to be such a drama queen about it. Seriously, it gets so annoying after a while. Yeah, we feel bad for you. But then we start to feel bad about us feeling bad for you."_

_That stung Emma, it really did. It was a harsh twist of reality and Emma absolutely hated it. Even though she had felt immense pain, she had made it worse. With each tale she wove, she amplified the details so that people would give more sympathy. As the story got worse and worse, her need for sympathy just went off of the charts. It was a horrid habit that she couldn't just stop at the drop of a hat. The oxygen rich sympathy was needed for her to be able to function properly. Without it, depression and pity would be the cause of her untimely demise as they sucked every sign of life away from her and into the sea of emptiness._

_"Oh yeah, it's just **so** hard for you," Emma snapped before wrenching her hand loose from his slight grip. "Do you know how many people would want to be in your shoes? Do you?!"_

_He scoffed and looked at the blonde as if her question was the most idiotic in the world. "You know, I bet more people want to be Brad Pitt rather than yours truly. You'd be an idiot if you didn't think I was in demand, you know? But I don't go around with a sign on my ass saying that I'm the greatest." He couldn't help but crack a slight smirk as techno music flowed out of the expensive plastic stereos inside the house which was about one hundred and fifty feet away from where they were. "Are you suggesting I do so? If you are, just give me ten bucks and I'd be glad to, Nelson. Does it have to be all prissy and glittery? I'm just not down with that, seriously. Then we're looking at twenty dollars, at least."_

_She couldn't help but casting him a glare that suggest he was an idiot, and if it were completely wrong to consider anything other than what she thought. Emma was quite like that. Once she got an opinion, she tried to force it on others. If you didn't agree with her, then you'd be subjected to a rousing and aggravating around of mudslinging and debating with the determined blonde._

_"You're such an egomaniac," She snorted before flipping a chunk of blonde hair over her shoulder. It was almost as if a single hair flip cast his completely inane comment aside; into the depths of her conscious and never to be remembered again. Except, of course, at some random time where she would have no clue what she was recalling. That would result in her digging to __China__ and never arriving at her destination. "Can't you think of someone other than yourself for a while? Or is your brain too simple to think that hard? Hmm?"_

_He stared at her with a completely deadpanned expression slowly washing his face. The look on his face made Emma's statement completely legitimate, it seemed. But he was not going to thrown in the towel this early in the game. It was only the sixth round and he wasn't going to go down until he said he was going to. In fact, he was just as pushy as she had the ability of being. As much as they liked to think of themselves as complete polar opposites, they really did share the same qualities. Of course, if you were two mention that to either of them, they'd probably want to end up silencing you in any way possible._

_"Why did I even bother coming out here," He asked no one in particular. "I could've just stayed home and heard complaining from the rental units. Thanks, Emma, I **really** appreciate it. Your insults towards me I could've just stayed home for. I'm an idiot, okay? I get it. I freaking get it. Yet you and every one of my relatives like to throw it in my face that I'm not on the honor roll like my parents were. Thanks, I really appreciate it." The blonde male started to attempt to get up from the lawn chair. His action wasn't fully carried out. This was due to the fact that Emma currently was holding onto his arm and preventing him from moving. Also because her nails were digging into his flesh and probably leaving crimson colored marks on his lightly toned skin._

_"I'm sorry," She apologized in an ashamed voice that probably was enough to rattle his mind. Mostly because he had never heard her utter a single apology from her pale and lip balm covered lips in his life. Another befuddled expression fell upon his previously frustrated face. He looked at her with bewildered blue eyes as she raised an eyebrow at him._

_"Oh man," He laughed dryly. "Call the presses! Emma Nelson actually apologized. Holy crap, I'm surprised, as well as a lucky man. Does anyone out here have a video camera?" That was sarcasm, of course, considering that the two blonde figures were the only people in the spacious backyard of Hazel Aden. It was quite a rarity that they were the only ones there. Almost as if some force brought them together to help them realize how much a like they were. This could be some calculated situation that they had both seen in movies that they had been forced to watch against their will. There was most certainly an intolerable cruelty between the two that was apparent. Each party had a reason for shooting daggers at the other and both reasons could be considered perfectly good arguments. However, there was this minute possibility that they could possibly learn a little something from the other. Of course, if you were to relay that information to either of the parties, that whole killing the messenger policy would be reinstated._

_Shimmering light from the moon swam through the sky and danced across the chlorine scented water and created a blurry one way mirror for anyone wishing to see their reflection. Emma peered over the side of the lawn chair while her blonde companion resumed his position of sitting in the avocado colored chair right beside her. He glanced over at her, looking at the water. He noticed how she seemed to observe every ripple was formed and how she watched each ripple vanish into the five feet of transparent water. His eyes filled with curiosity as she began tracing imperfections on the arm rest of the chair with her finger out of complete boredom._

_"Dude, are you okay? You're spacing out on me here," He stated worriedly yet jokingly at the same time. When she didn't seem to respond, he stuck his hefty hand in front of her face and waved it to try to get a reaction from her. It seemed to work, when she swiftly managed to tear her eyes away from the ripples being formed in the pool and back to him.   
  
When she did look at him, her eyes sent a chill down his spine. They almost seemed to be empty and showed absolutely no emotion. Her pupils resembled a completely black canvas while the brown in her eyes crashed into a million pieces. The bits of brown no longer danced in the light when she was bragging about some accomplishment. There was no subtle hint at what she could possibly be thinking at this point in time. Yet, he never really took the time to ask himself what Emma Nelson was thinking. To do so, could possibly be somewhat dangerous. He could be diving into a tank of sharks. Even though she did tend to make it incredibly obvious about what she was thinking about, there always seemed to be some kind of cryptic meaning behind it. If you could figure out what that was, you unlocked a door to an assortment of thoughts, aspirations, worries, and pains of Emma Nelson. Her mind was a dark and thick Asian rain forest with a multitude of thoughts running to and fro as well as memories either growing or dying there as experiences crept through and caused everything to flourish. That was the desired effect anyway._

_"I'm fine," She stated as her voice, much like her eyes, showed absolutely no emotion. "I really am."  
  
He didn't believe an ounce of it. "Are you sure about that," He asked. "You almost seemed as though you kind of…died for a minute there. Maybe that whole apology thing kind of shocked you as much as it shocked me."  
  
Finally, slight irritation started to diffuse through her eyes as the pieces of brown collected and darkened as she narrowed her eyes at him. "Ha, you're such a comedian," She grumbled sarcastically. "Maybe I should take back my apology. It could possibly be wasted on you."  
  
"Do you **ever** shut up," He asked her with a groan while a slight smirk spread across her face._

_"No," She replied simply without any shame. "I don't wish to be quiet, so I won't be. It's simple, really, it is."  
  
"But there is a way to shut you up."  
  
A confused look crept up Emma's face as she wrinkled an eyebrow in confusion. What was he talking about? There was no way for her to be quiet. She had freedom of speech and could talk whenever she pleased._

_"Huh," She asked; deadpanned._

_A smirk that resembled the one that Emma wore a moment ago was bought by him before he latched his lips onto hers and exchanged it for store credit. He didn't know why he had decided that this would be the best way to silence Emma. There was just some voice in the pit of his stomach that was simply screaming its head off at him to do this. He thought for sure that she would have slapped him for doing such a hideous thing. But instead, the warmth of his lips gave her a secure feeling. Her fingertips ran up the side of his face as they continued to engage in a heated lip lock._

_But the engagement was about to be nullified as another blonde figure with long swishy hair came up behind Emma with a rather large hypodermic needle in hand. An angry look was spread across the figures face as it drove the gigantic needle into Emma's back, causing her to fall and fall down into an endless pit.   
  
A demonic voice rang out as Emma continued to descend deeper and deeper into the hole.   
  
"YOU WHORE," it screeched._

Before Emma knew it, she was sitting up and covered in sweat and starchy white sheets. Her heart was nearly going to explode out of her chest with each beat. Sweat dampened her body and blonde hair as her panting flowed into the darkness of the night. The funny thing was she had been having that dream every single night lately. The end would always be altered somehow but everything else…had really happened. All of these flashbacks haunted her so.

Mostly because if she hadn't gone to that stupid party, she probably wouldn't even be here right now. 


	4. Meetings

Last night had been absolutely hellacious to say the least. After that mind boggling dream, Emma had turned into a complete insomniac. Her eyes darted back and forth as every little creak resonated through her ears causing her to almost jump out of her skin. As if her lack of slumber wasn't dreadful enough, today was the day of her weekly group therapy session. It made no sense. Why did she have to attend these immensely screwed up sessions? There was no way in hell that Emma Nelson had even _thought_ much less _injected_ heroin into her system that caused a powerful addiction. There was absolutely no need for her to be here.

None at all. 

Of course, those wretched people decided that she needed to be here. It was all about need. No one needed to know what Emma needed. That was probably because the subject of Emma's needs was the farthest things away from them in their field of thoughts. She was encircled in a vast ring of fire and no one knew the proper way to save her. Instead, they blamed the fire on her which ended up causing her to fall off of her grass covered pedestal. No one wanted to be that set of hands that pushed her off. So instead they all pointed the finger of blame at Emma. She resulted in her own downfall. However, it was incredibly obvious that no one had heard her pitiful cries for help. They were all wrapped up in their own saran wrapped conversations and lives. They all had their own problems to deal with and couldn't possibly be bothered with the minuscule trials and tribulations of Emma Nelson. Hence why she was left to her own devices and started burning slowly at the stake that they had all hung her on. With each selfish action they performed, the rope that tied her to the stake was wrapped around her once more. Of course, what happened to Emma didn't seem to affect anyone. 

There seemed to be absolutely no concept to this thing they deemed "therapy". Mostly because Emma was completely and utterly convinced that therapy was absolutely wasted on her. In fact, that statement could be argued by anyone of the members in the group therapy session. She seemed to accomplish absolutely nothing in these sessions except for frustrate everyone else trying to accomplish something that could be considered progress. 

The blonde sat stiffly in the olive hued plastic chair much like everyone else had in the room. They were all in placed in a circle. The whole circle arrangement seemed so elementary. It was as if they were all being treated as if they were misbehaving first graders that had to learn to properly interact with each other by being stuck in a situation together. It was as if they were a bunch of random first graders who were on the same kickball team in gym class due to their sweat suit adorned gym teacher's assemblage of teams. None of them necessarily had to like each other, but they were forced to attempt to work with one another. It was positively juvenile to Emma. And to make matters worse, these plastic chairs were enhancing the immense pain swimming up and down her back. To Emma, this was cruel and unusual torture. 

"So, I'd like to thank everyone for coming to the session today," a rather built dark haired man addressed the group while Emma rolled her eyes. It was as if he was thanking everyone that he could subject them to mind numbing torture and telling them that they all had some problem. Well, of course, everyone else did. Emma seemed completely unfazed by the fact that heroin addiction was a serious problem. She had become so accustomed to injecting the drug into her veins that it became a part of her daily routine like getting dressed and brushing her teeth.   
  
There was also some kind of twisting of the knife when the man leading the group looked entirely clean cut while everyone else looked like they had crawled out of a hole after dying. He was subliminally taunting them with the fact that he appeared to be more superior to them, even though he claimed to be someone they could come to with their problems and issues. Emma didn't believe a word of his sugar coated speech. It seemed too glossed over to be the truth. Everything seemed to be altered. Reality itself had been altered immensely. This alteration horrified Emma and left her in the dark realm of absolute confusion and insanity. 

"Who would like to share their story today," the man questioned a sea of faces that were attentively listening, with the exception of Emma though. After a moment of mind numbing silence, a brunette woman meekly raised her hand. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties or so, but that could easily be mistaken for someone who was possible Emma's age because of the way her face just looked incredibly tired. The circles under her eyes just gave her this rather unflattering appearance. It was possible that woman could've been a complete knock-out. She had potential buried underneath the dirt and grime of withdrawal and depression.

"My name is Katherine," She introduced herself in a raspy worn out voice. "I started using marijuana when I was about…um…actually around my seventeenth birthday. My friend and I decided that it would make my birthday party more fun. It just felt…so…refreshing." Katherine let out a sigh before going on about the intimate details of her seventeenth birthday party. 

It was quite obvious that Emma had absolutely no amount of interest in the subject at hand. Instead, she decided to send everyone a slight glare without the help of the UPS delivery man dressed in his too short brown shorts. Unfortunately for Emma, they seemed to be too into the story. They were completely hooked on it as she continued to spin a slightly dull story. How Katherine made everyone pay attention to her with her dramatic emphasis to each part of the story. It wasn't really an exciting story either that involved any amount of drama. Emma fumed with envy. How could she possibly make the story seem so full of excitement and tragedy? Of course, Emma knew that the story wasn't all that great. But that was quite ironic considering she was only half listening. She was off in her own little dream land where no one could even think about touching her. She was lost in this land of beautiful oblivion from the story that was being woven like some kind of horrible piece of fabric that was uneven at the edges.

"And my mom was kind of wondering why in the world my grades were suffering," Katherine continued in her raspy voice causing a set of hands to push Emma out of her dream world. How absolutely horrible. Now she had to actually listen to some poor sob story from someone who made one wrong decision, drove down the wrong road, and got into some accident that was their fault. And the fact of the matter was that Emma wasn't one of those people who made those completely idiotic decisions. She loved to think that she had her head on completely straight. That she was the person you went to if you needed to be given some kind of help. The blonde couldn't simply picture herself having the tables turned completely out of control so that she was the one on the opposite side of the door. Emma didn't want to be the one knocking on someone's door begging for some help. No, there was simply no way that was going to be the way things worked out. It was simply unspeakable. Unfortunately, it's hard for someone to dig themselves out of a deep and dark hole called denial.

"I never told her. Mostly because I didn't think it was any of her business," the sickly looking brunette continued on while Emma looked down at her tennis shoes and the sounds of only Katherine continuing to weave the tale filtered throughout her ears. She didn't want to listen, mostly because then she would know when this horrid story would be finished being told. Then it would possibly be her turn to tell her "story". Emma didn't have a story. Emma didn't have a reason for being here. Actually, it was more like Emma knew there was a reason for her appearance here. There was that whole angle about actually acknowledging she had a problem was something that Emma didn't fly right with.

"Then one day, she found me in my room smoking a joint and with these absolutely pathetic look on my face," Katherine let out a shaky sigh. "My eyes must've been so damn blood shot and I probably looked absolutely wretched. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and asked me why. 'Why did you do this to yourself, Katie bear? Why?' Before I knew what hit me, I ended up here. And I've been here for the past three months. It's helped me, it really has. I just don't want to make my mother cry anymore. I used to be this wonderful soccer player and went to some championships. Now I'm an expert at rolling joints." She ran a nervous hand through her limp brown hair before putting her head in her hands. "I'm twenty one; I should be in college right now trying to get my degree in Philosophy. I'm here and making my mother wondering how she went wrong." 

She buried her head in her hands while letting out a shaky sob. Her single sob suddenly broke into several muffled sobs causing the other group members to just stare at her with eyes filled with sympathy. Well, all of the group members except for Emma, who seemed to be completely unfazed by the story. It did, however, let thoughts of her own mother fill her head. They had told her that her mother was the one that had found her in the bedroom unconscious. They had told her that if her mother hadn't called when she did, she probably would've died. They made her mother look like this wonderful hero while Emma was the villain in the comic book. Everyone pointed the finger of shame at Emma. Of course, they had no reason to point the finger of shame at her, mostly because she didn't _have_ a problem.

"I don't want to make my mother cry anymore," Katherine sobbed while Emma rolled her eyes and muttered some derogatory comment under her breath. The blonde didn't see the reason why this Katherine girl should be offered any sympathy. It wasn't as if she was completely oblivious to what she was doing to herself. It was _her_ choice to become some pathetic lowlife that abused marijuana because they enjoyed it. The girl seemed to have a good life going for her by the way Emma perceived the situation. While Katherine was off living the life that anyone would be lucky to have, Emma was off fighting battles with the demons while trying to bargain with them to postpone the battles for a date when she could actually win the battles. The sheer idiocy of this Katherine character made Emma want to explode into a ball of flames and perish everything in sight. Then she'd be the eternal flame that destroyed everything that tried to put her out. There was no way that Emma Nelson would go down without a fight. That also was a get one buy one free sale. If Emma Nelson wouldn't go down with a fight, that would mean she sure as hell wouldn't admit any fault or mistake. Even if she did, she would blend a fresh coat of denial and stubbornness over it. No one would notice an imperfection, no matter its size, because Emma had the ability of glossing it over.

 Her life had been completely glossed over until someone made the varnish come off. After the varnish had come off, she felt exposed and naked. There was no coverage in sight. Emma hated that vulnerable and naked feeling. There was no way she could have anyone see her that way. But _he_ saw right through that. For that, she gave him some credit. He wasn't a bumbling idiot like she had thought him to be. It was a marvelous act that Emma applauded. It was then she realized that everyone is a performer in a play. No one has a true identity because humans have the ability to be so mercurial. Some small line in the play could change the way the character behaved.   
  
"You know we'll be here for you, Katherine, if you need any help at all. Admitting it is the first step," the group leader reassured Katherine whose sobs had turned her face red with sadness and shame. Emma let out a scoff before rolling her eyes. This all felt so programmed. Every word that had come out of the leader's mouth was something that you'd expect him to say. Every word was as if it had been read off of some cue card or memorized many times. 

"Miss Nelson," the group leader's voice boomed causing Emma to practically jump out of her skin. "We've never heard your story. We'd like to hear it so we can help you in any way possible. We're here for you."

_Bullshit, _Emma thought bitterly. 

"Bullshit," She said softly.

The man blinked, "Pardon? I couldn't exactly make out what you're saying, Miss Nelson. Can you please speak up for me?"

It was obvious to anyone with vision to see that Emma was riddled with a strong feeling of absolute anger. She spoke, her tone burning with fury, "I _said_ 'Bullshit'! Do you _need_ me to spell it out for you? B-u-l-l-s-h-i-t! That spells 'bullshit!" Her shrieking caused everyone to just stare at her. She hated it. She hated how their eyes undressed her and made her feels so vulnerable. It was one of the worst feelings in the world that she had ever experienced. 

Her rant continued, "I don't need your sympathy, okay?! I'm not supposed to be here. I don't have a problem like the rest of you…_people_! I'm not some kind of pathetic screw-up! _Okay_?!" She crossed her arms against her chest, trying to hide her absolute nakedness as their eyes continued to bore into her. She could feel her body shaking; every cell seemed to be shaking only slightly which caused this feeling of absolute trembling wash over her lanky body. Emma panted which each shake while everyone's eyes seemed to loom around her and surround her. Tag, she was it. 

"Oh c'mon," a raven haired man piped up in a rather sarcastic and taunting tone. "Do you realize how absolutely batty you are? You _need_ to talk about it. It really helps. Don't give us this dehumanization act towards us. You're just one of us and you're too freaking self-righteous to admit it."  
  
Emma shot him an acidic glare before muttering, "Oh, screw off, junkie."

"Hey babe, I can't hear you," He called from his side of the room in his patronizing voice. "Speak up! I can't _hear_ you!"

"Nathan, _please_ stop it," the group leader commanded. "When Emma's ready to talk, she'll talk. Just…give her some time."  
  
This was yet another one of these things that Emma hated. How people assumed things about her. They all thought they could peg certain actions on her and just assume these things about her. She remembered this phrase she heard somewhere. Where…she didn't know. "When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me." It always amused her, how absolutely corny it was. But in essence, it was the truth. 

The room sat in absolute silence as they waited for Emma to make some kind of response, whether it was verbally or in some kind of gesture or look. Of course, she didn't dare to give them the satisfaction of a reaction. It was as if she was some show that everyone watched on the television. One of those horrid reality shows.

Silence was absolutely shattered into small fragments when the door to the large room was opened. In popped the same red headed nurse that had come to talk to Emma a week ago. It had been thirty seven days in this hell hole. Thirty seven days and counting. There was no exact date that she would depart from this wretched place and be deemed acceptable to society.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," She apologized in her saccharine voice. It sounded so plastic to Emma and she absolutely hated it. "But um, Miss Nelson, you need to come with me."

This nurse seemed to be her savior at the moment. She was giving her a pumpkin coach that was leading her out of the mind numbing group therapy session. Of course, this nurse was probably one of those absolutely deluded people who thought she had a problem. So jumping right into the pumpkin coach wasn't exactly an option. But, to apprehensively get in after asking some questions about her motives would give Emma some kind of warped security.

"Why," Emma asked innocently while looking at the nurse.

"Just come with me," the nurse slightly snapped. At the expense of needing some kind of escape from this wretched place, she got up from her chair as her tennis shoes squeaked against the cold linoleum floor. The group seemed to be functioning well without her presence, mostly because the devil known as the group leader was currently trying to delve into some poor soul's personal life.

"What's going on," Emma asked firmly but with a hint of curiousness lingering in her tone. "Why am I being pulled from my session?"  
  
The nurse offered her a slight smile, "You…have a visitor." The nurse seemed to be slightly baffled by the concept of Emma having a visitor, or so Emma thought. "We told them that you were in a session and you shouldn't be interrupted. However, they insisted on seeing you right away. I don't know why, but they sounded absolutely frantic."

They walked down the corridor in silence before arriving at the reception area. A familiar figure stood there as Emma just stared in absolute awe. Her eyes were flooded with shock as her mouth opened slightly as she continued to stare. What was going on?  
  


"Miss Nelson, I believe you know your visitor," the nurse chimed in her ever bubbly tone.

"Hello," was their greeting for Emma. 


	5. Heroin Induced Denial

There are times in a person's life where you feel absolutely frozen. The causes of this chilled feeling are as various as the amount of languages that run rampant through this world. In this particular instance, shock had frozen Emma entirely as if she were some dead fish thrown into a freezer. Her visitor was someone she would never have expected in the longest time. It was mostly due to their strained relationship, or lack there of. They rarely interacted with one another. When they did, it was mostly to exchange numerous acidic insults and to throw daggers at the other with their eyes. However, there was none of this right now. Only awkward silence flowed between the two, like currents of weak electricity.

"What are you doing here," Emma asked in a weak voice, not up to arguing at this very moment. She wasn't really for anything at this moment. Opinions on environmental hazards weren't the top priority for her. In fact, she had no priorities right now. Nothing was of any importance. All she did nowadays was cradle herself and watch each day slowly creep by. All she did was go through the motions of everyday life and never experience anything out of the normal. She craved for excitement, any sign that she was a living and breathing human, and not some wind up robot toy. There was no obvious reminder that she was alive. She didn't feel it. Every emotion she had possessed strangled itself around the others as they fell to the ground silently screaming. Emma never heard their pleas but felt the impact of their death. Now, there was nothing to fill the void they left behind. The void seemed to expand with each passing day, which made the void harder to fill. It was an endless cycle that Emma tried to stop, but her feeble attempts were never enough to stop it.

"Wow, hon, you…really let yourself go," Paige replied while glancing at Emma as a whole. Her eyes took in each detail that was Emma and slowly analyzed her with each movement of her eyes. Emma's off kilter appearance struck many cords with Paige. On one hand, she felt slightly sympathetic. On another hand, she felt incredibly shocked. She had never expected Emma to be in this kind of a situation. But on a third mutant hand, she felt like the bigger person. She felt so much superior that this wasn't happening to her. She loved the idea of being able to spread her wings and be free, while Emma was caged up like a little heroin induced canary. 

Emma scoffed, "Why are you here, Paige?! To tell me how shitty I look! I already know about that, _hon_." Paige was absolutely flabbergasted. The canary was currently flying manically around the cage and rattling it while trying to escape. "You better tell me why, or I can have your ass kicked out of here so damn fast. You don't want to mess with me, Paige. I'm so serious. You really don't want to mess with me."  
  
Paige's eyes shifted around nervously. Gone were the days of perky environmentalist Emma. This new Emma was someone that Paige seriously didn't want to deal with. It would've been easier if that perky environmentalist Emma was still there, and that whole heroin addiction was just a little side note. Hell, it would've been easier if she didn't even have to be at this god forsaken place. She questioned why she had been appointed the messenger. It was probably due to her volunteering for the position.

"Emma, calm down," Paige started hesitantly. "Can we sit down somewhere? I'll tell you why I'm here when we sit down. Just please, hon, calm down." Paige looked down at Emma, who seemed to be ready to give into Paige's demands. They weren't very horrid demands, but giving to Paige wasn't something Emma would do. Emma was a brick wall, who wouldn't give into anyone now. Nowadays, all she wanted to do was being by herself and fuel her fire of emptiness. Every day, she added more and more wood than the day before.

Emma gave a vague nod as she led Paige over towards the visiting area. Only a few other people were littered around the small white room. The room was completely immaculate and completely white. The walls were white, the floor was white, and the furniture was white. It was just one big blur of white with a few talking bodies scattered about, adding a flesh toned hue to certain spots of the room. Emma's spotless tennis shoes seemed to blend into the floor as Paige's black platform sandals contrasted against the floor. Emma contrasted Paige. Emma was sloppily put together as if she were just scribbled onto a paper with no thought. Paige was a beautiful well thought out portrait. Everything complimented one another and blurred together as one compliment for Paige. Maybe it was along the lines of her being beautiful, smart, or having some tremendous accomplishment. On the other hand, Emma was the polar opposite. She was her own insult. She was her own worst enemy. If it wasn't for her careless turns on the road, she wouldn't have driven here.

The two blondes sat down at a white table, with a purple vase and a single white daisy placed in the vase. Emma ran a hand through her limp and straight hair while Paige took off her rose colored sunglasses and laid them on the table. The sunlight coming from a nearby window swept through the glasses and created two circles with a square quality to them on the pallid table. 

"Wow, I never would've expected Emma Nelson to be in a drug rehab clinic," Paige stated condescendingly while glancing at Emma with a look that screamed superiority complex to anyone who possessed the ability of hearing. Emma rolled her eyes and looked away from Paige's eyes which were piercing her and leaving behind little football shaped wounds. "I mean, I expected you in jail for like protesting about some new environmental law. Yet again, I never would've expected who your little Canadian drug lord was." Paige stopped short at the mention of that. She bit her lip as if to stop the words from flowing from her mouth. She dammed up the river as the words became squished against the concrete. There was no filter but an awkward silence.

Emma groaned, "Paige, shut the hell up. I'm still convinced you're here to try to be your incredibly annoying self. You're just completely pathetic."

It was obvious that Paige was slightly offended by the harshness of Emma's words. They burned her foundation covered skin and caused her to react. However, when this would be a well put together reaction. Paige had to prove the fact of her being superior to Emma by being mature about the whole matter at hand.

"Listen, hon, I don't deserve your bullshit right now," Paige snapped while narrowing her eyes at Emma. "I'm not the one who made your choices for you. I didn't push you to become some poor heroin junkie. You've fallen apart Emma, and you have to put yourself together. The talk about you in Degrassi makes you out to be some heartless bitch that doesn't need anyone. I hate to say that they're completely true, hon."

Emma met Paige's glare with an even more menacing glare while she drummed her fingers against the table. Paige had nerve, too much nerve. Emma had to push Paige off of her pedestal. She couldn't deal with Paige and her superiority complex right now. She couldn't deal with anything right about now without the help from her angel. It had been forty days. They had been the most hellacious forty days of the eighteen years that she lived on this wretched planet. 

"Oh, are you still upset about the whole Spinner thing," Emma asked with a touch of rage to her voice. "You know what? You can have him! I don't give a shit anymore! I really don't, considering _he_ doesn't care about _me_! You can have that bastard because I want someone else to experience the amount of pain and anguish I was subjected to while being involved with him."  
  
Paige's voice turned soft, "I can't."

"Why not," Emma smirked. "He's doping up some other unlucky bitch? Let me guess, it's Manny. How fantastic. After putting Craig through hell, it's time that the tables were turned. Manny doesn't know what she's in for." She let out a chuckle. "I love it."

The dam was soon broken as water surged through. Little bits of concrete were thrown from the original dam site as a nearby town was flooded. Local towns stared on as they hoped that the water wouldn't reach them. It was an all out catastrophe that was unpreventable.

"Emma, listen to me! He's not with Manny. He's not with _anybody_. You want to know why," Paige fumed as she could felt herself becoming flushed as she took a deep breath and continued on. "He had an overdose, Emma! He had an overdose. He was found in Craig's bathroom during band rehearsal. They don't know if it was intentional or not. And they also don't know whether or not he's going to _make it_!" Paige let a tear trickle down her cheek as the sounds of Emma Nelson's shock filled the air. The room was absolutely silent with the exception of Paige slightly sobbing. "You stole him away from me, but I still care about him. I don't necessarily love him, but I _care_ about him. I care about the fact that one of my best friends might be _dying_." Paige stared at Emma's deadpanned face as her eyes urged Emma to say something. "Aren't you going to say _anything_?!"

There were no words. Emma stayed completely silent while trying to cradle herself. Unfortunately, she fell out of her own arms and tumbled down to the floor. The one person that she had perceived to actually understand her and cradled her in a heroin bassinet had been locked out of the room where the bassinet was. Now, he might not find the key. No one would be able to feed her the nourishment she needed once the bassinet had broken. Down came Emma and all, as she was left to her own devices and to fend for herself. The task seemed almost too horrific for Emma to have to deal with. Instead of being cradled in his arms, she now had to be cradled in the arms of denial. His face was initially friendly but had harshness to it once you got to stare at it for a while. However, it was a source of synthetic comfort that she couldn't help but cling onto. 

The silence was shattered by Emma chuckling while she shook her head. Paige shot her an appalled look and still waited for Emma to utter a single word.

"Paige, c'mon, where's the just kidding," Emma asked urgently. "I'm one of the victims to your practical jokes. But unlike JT, I saw it coming! You're losing your touch, Paige. You're such a horrible liar." The denial intoxicated Emma as she let out insane chuckles that alarmed Paige. This was so out of character of Emma. This wasn't Emma Nelson. It was just some girl who looked like her and had her name. What a small world, Paige hoped. She didn't want to be there to pick up the pieces of Emma. She didn't want to be a part of this situation. She wanted to detach herself from the body of where she was a band aid. If she were the band aid, she wouldn't hear the screams of the person, for she was a simple inanimate object with no senses.

"Hon, do I look like I'm kidding," Paige asked harshly as she chomped down on each one of her words and spit them in Emma's face. "Why would I make something up? I didn't believe it at first either, but..." She trailed off as she felt her throat close up and suffocate the meanings from her words. However after a moment, the grasp around the words was lifted and they moved freely once again.

"Don't joke around with me, Paige," Emma threatened. "You don't want to joke around with me. I'm a heroin addict, the most screwed up drug addict, that's what they tell you in Health class. If you joke around with me, I will tear you to pieces. I have been cooped up in this hell hole for forty days. I haven't eaten in two. I am confused beyond reason and have been broken into pieces. I will kill you, Paige, unless you come out and tell me that you're joking around. Once you stop hiding behind your Chanel make-up and lies, I'll be alright. I _know_ you're joking around."  
  
"I'm not joking, Emma," Paige insisted. Her pleas were maimed by Emma's denial. Denial always had the upper hand in a situation similar or identical to this one. "And why would I be joking?"

"Because Spinner isn't _in_ Degrassi, Sherlock," Emma stated as a matter of fact. "I asked Craig where Spinner was when I was in the hospital for god knows what reason. Spinner is in _Winnipeg_. His dad lives there. Goes to show how much you know about the guy. If you were good friends, then you obviously weren't good enough to know where his hide outs are. You're so brilliant, Paige. You really are."

Paige could feel herself crashing into pieces of individual emotions. Each piece was a certain shape and could fit with other similar shapes. She picked up one of the pieces and held it to herself, feeling the emotion radiate into her body.

"Emma, what the fuck is your problem," Paige shrieked. "Are you on something right now? You don't _get_ it! You just don't! Do you need me to repeat it? Do you?! I don't want to repeat it. I don't want it to be real, but it _is_ real! It's real…" She trailed off gazing out towards the window, begging it to take her to an alternate reality. One where she didn't even care, or better yet _know_ about Spinner and Emma's presence. There was so much desire that Paige had towards that particular cause. It burned inside her. It burned her. Her swishy blonde hair streamed down her face as she buried her head in her hands and stared up at the ceiling.  
  


Emma never thought of Paige as a type who would be a good actress. She was too dramatic for her own good and everything was so exaggerated. It always felt so plastic. _Paige_ felt plastic. She was a walking doll that was put on display in someone's glass case. There were points where she would escape from her glass encased prison. After she was caught by her decrepit owner who also owned half a dozen cats, she would be stuffed back into her prison.

She felt her eyes glaze over as she looked at Paige, who was still looking at the ceiling wistfully. Perhaps the ceiling was supposed to perform a ballet produced by the Russian Ballet company. Or perhaps, Paige was being horribly avoidant of the situation at hand. It was quite odd, considering that Paige seemed to be one who would dive head first into the pool. However, she was swiping her foot hesitantly over the cold waters. Emma stared at Paige while she felt those emotions becoming resurrected. The malevolent emotions were the only ones that were lucky enough to be resurrected. They overwhelmed Emma as she felt her pulse quicken. Her heartbeat boomed loudly with the sounds of Paige sighing sadly. They were in symphony with each other in the orchestra of all things melancholy.

"Why couldn't you have been joking," Emma sobbed. The void was now slowly being filled. However, the void wasn't half full, but half empty. Her sobs filled the void of awkwardness though. "Oh god, he could be _dead_ right now. He's such an idiot! If I wasn't here, then he'd be alright. He _needs_ me. But no, they said I had a problem and threw me in this hell hole. No, _I'm_ not the one with the problem. _He_ has the problem. And now he's completely screwed himself up. I'm making no sense and I can hardly breathe right now!" She let out a shaky sigh before burying her head into her hands and sobbing.  
  
"What the hell is wrong with me," Emma screeched while she swiped her hand across the table. The purple vase was pushed aside. It then started to fall. It slowly and gracefully fell before shattering. Little fragments of lavender flooded the floor as the daisy stood beside itself.

"Emma, please, calm down," Paige pleaded sternly. "I'm already an emotional wreck as is. I don't need someone else to be an emotional wreck along with me. I'm…I need a smoke. I need a freaking cigarette to calm my nerves. I also need you to come with me."

Emma looked up through confused tear filled eyes, "Come with you to where?"

"Back to the…hospital," Paige stated with a slight sniff. "That's where I came from. Craig told me to come visit you here. I also volunteered considering I knew where this place is, I pass it everyday on the way to work. Please, Emma, come with me. I honestly don't care about how you get out of here. Just get out. You've been cooped up here for so long; you need a breath of fresh air. Wait…how long are you going to be here for?"

"Six months," Emma croaked. "I'm enrolled in the six month program that involves group therapy and other shit."  
  
"Sounds fun," Paige rolled her eyes. "But at least you're getting help for your problem."

"Paige, I don't _have_ a problem! I don't even know why I'm even here! Mostly because those idiots like to think I have a problem," Emma snapped furiously. "But I can get out of here for a few hours. I wasn't thrown in here by a court hearing or whatever, so I'm free to come and go."

Paige raised an eyebrow, "How come you never tried to get out of here before? If you really hate the place, then why are you here? Especially since you're _so_ convinced that you were unjustly tossed in here."

The possibility of escaping crossed Emma's mind a numerous amount of times. But what was the point of escaping if there was no place to go? She would have been running around in circles. There would have been no place to go, no destination to reach. There would only be swirling out of control and dizziness and confusion. The confusion wasn't the ideal feeling that Emma wanted to go for. She wanted to be free. She wanted to be free of all of the barriers that had been put around her. All she did was want. Reality seemed to be just a foot note.

"No place to go," Emma remarked. 

"Now you have a place to go," Paige stated. "Now, I know you don't particularly care for me. But believe me, the feeling is mutual. But listen to me when I say to take advantage of this situation. And plus, with the gossip I've been hearing about you and Spin, you need to tie up some loose ends."

Emma scoffed, "It's all about gossip with you, Paige. I bet all of this dirt about me isn't even true."  
  
"Oh yeah," Paige stated as the two blondes walked over towards the reception area. "Prove it to me. Once you tell me every excruciating detail that regards you and Spin, then I'll tell you whether or not the dirt is true. Until then…well, you know hon."

After Emma signed a release form that indicated she'd only be out of there for a few hours, the two bickering women walked out of the doors and into the fresh sunlight. Emma breathed in fresh air; something she hadn't done since she had come to this place. The sunlight provided warmth to Emma's tired body as it gave Paige's bleached highlights a shimmering quality to them. They walked out into the parking lot, towards a rather extravagant looking car.

"Do you just want to know so you can spread more dirt around about me," Emma asked harshly while pouring sulfuric acid on each one of her words.   
  
Paige's voice turned soft, "Actually, hon, I kind of want to know for the sake of knowing. I don't care about that dirt that Hazel is spreading around. I really don't. I want to know what the hell went on between you two. I mean, you and Spinner hooking up was, like, a sign of the apocalypse. Well, the sign of the apocalypse for me, anyway."  
  
"I never would've expected it either," Emma replied in all honesty. Paige unlocked the passenger side of the car before clomping over to the driver's side of the car. "Why am I even talking about this with you of all people? Why?"

Paige rolled her eyes, "I honestly don't know." She fished a cigarette out of its box while searching through her purse for a lighter. She came upon a hot pink lighter and cried a rather jubilant, "Found you!" The flame created by the lighter pressed against the end of cigarette, creating a smoky smell that filled the air. Emma let out a hacking cough before opening the window and letting the warm summer air seep into the car. Paige sent a slight glare in Emma's direction after she had opened the window.

"Do you mind? The air conditioning doesn't work if you have the windows open," Paige informed her snootily. "It kind of defeats the purpose, y'know?"

Emma growled, "Do you think I'll be able to _breathe_ without the windows being opened?"

"Fine, fine," Paige commented as she held the cigarette between her lips and backed out of the parking space she had crammed the red jeep into. Soon, they were sailing out of the parking lot and onto the open road. The warm summer air caressed Emma's face as she could feel herself sailing off into the horizon. She felt so absolutely free, with the exception that Paige's cigarette smoke was interrupting the process of breathing in fresh arid air.

Emma looked longingly out the window and seemed to be getting lost in her dream world without a map. She looked up and into the horizon as the sun practically burned her retinas. She looked away and down at her white tennis shoe covered feet. Her eyes started to fill with tears.

The older blonde caught the tears trickling down Emma's cheek out of the corner of her eye. "Are you okay, hon?" 

_"Where is our supply, Spinner," Emma shouted at the burly blonde in front of her. She sat on her bed in her bedroom while Spinner paced around. "You said you were going to bring our supply with you while my mom went out and got Chinese food!" She stood up in front of Spinner and sent a glare in his direction while her ceiling light beat down on them._

_Spinner looked at her tentatively, "My dealer got arrested last week." Rage filled his eyes as he groaned. "We're **both** screwed! Shit, I only have a needle full! And we all know how you won't even think about sharing the same needle."  
  
"Give me the damn needle," Emma shrieked while shaking Spinner like he was some rag doll. "Give me the needle! I need some! Give it to me **now**!"_

_Spinner pushed her away from him, "Calm the hell down! I need some too! You're so fucking selfish! Let me have some too!"_

_"Don't **touch** me," Emma screamed before digging her nails into Spinner's cheek flesh. Red crimson fluid streamed down from three extensive cuts on his face. His eyes shot flames at her before he pushed away with one hand while covering his cuts with the other. Emma toppled over while Spinner's hand became covered in blood. She managed to pick herself up before trying to pin Spinner down in an attempt to find the sacred baggie, which she believed to be in one of his pockets._

Emma spotted a Ziploc full of various cosmetics in Paige's handbag and looked down at her legs. She didn't realize that she hadn't answered Paige's question about her being alright. Of course, the answer was "no". Every since the summer between grade nine and ten, the answer had always been "no". She had found solace in someone who she had thought to be her savior, but it was the exact opposite. It created confusion in Emma which created anger and pain. There only seemed to be one way to conceal that anger and pain, which just made the pain even worse. Then the breaking point came, where she had to just release all of her bottled up anger. She had released her anger on a number of people. The list seemed to grow daily.

"Hon, you never answered my question," Paige informed a crying Emma. "But I'll take that as 'no'." The sounds of soft rock filtered through the car and some of the sound waves permeated out into the outside world.  Paige started to softly serenade herself with the lyrics of Natalie Imbruglia. "There's nothing where he used to lie, my inspiration has run dry…that's what's going on. Nothing's right, I'm torn. I'm all out of faith…"

"Stop singing," Emma commanded in a shaky tear filled voice. "If you stop singing, I'll tell you every little detail."

Paige shot Emma a curious look, "Do you suddenly trust me or something?" She took another puff of her cigarette, letting the smoke engulf her young and tired face.   
  
"No," Emma stated plainly. "I really don't trust you, Paige. I really don't. But you're here, and I happen to feel like getting this all off of my chest. Hey…do you mind subjecting me to second hand smoke?" She attempted to steal the cigarette out of Paige's slender fingers.

"I'm trying to _drive_," Paige snapped at Emma. "But I assure you cigarettes aren't as bad as heroin, so I'd quit my complaining if I were you."  
  
"Screw off," Emma muttered before slinking into her seat. "Fine, I'm not even going to tell you now. You obviously don't deserve to know what exactly went on."

Paige smirked behind a depressed mask, "We have an hour drive to endure. So, I think we'd both rather your story telling as opposed to arguing."  
  
"Well," Emma started gathering her thoughts and wiping away fresh tears. "Where do you want me to begin? The party?"  
  
"Everyone knows what happened at that party," Paige snarled. "How about starting with the Monday afterward?"

"That sounds like a plan," Emma rolled her eyes. "Fine, here we go…"


	6. In my place

The weekend had gone by with an extreme slowness. There were pros and cons to that situation and they were quite obvious to Emma, who was dreading the arrival of Monday. It seemed as though she kept on waiting for the end of each day and the dreading of a new one. The monotonous cycle was what her life seemed to be right now. There was no living, just going through the motions with a rain cloud hovering over her. The rain cloud was plugged with rain and could possibly produce a downpour at any second. Unfortunately for Emma, there was no umbrella in sight.  
  
She was greeted with the uproar of gossip and idle chit chat as she pushed open the doors to the school. In her mind flashed the picture of various people gawking at her while soft yet vicious whispering radiated in the air near them. The events of Friday night were something she could remember clearly as if they were playing on a television in her mind. The plot of the television show baffled her as she watched it for the first time and couldn't make heads or tails of it. However, the show was interrupted by a commercial as a familiar voice called Emma's name.  
  
"Emma," she spun around as the vision of JT running towards her filled her eyes. She stopped in her tracks, letting him catch up to her. "I'm sorry about Friday night. If it makes you feel any better, the senorita known as Hillary Jones rejected my mating call. Oh well, I'm still on the prowl." He ran a hand through his hair as he waited for Emma's response.  
  
She smiled vaguely yet reassuring, "It's okay. How was the rest of your weekend?"  
  
JT looked at her while cocking an eyebrow while silently asking a question. She responded with the raising of her eyebrow as she inquired about what in the world he seemed to be talking about. She certainly wasn't any mind reader albeit she did have more intelligence than that of a toaster oven.  
  
"Don't even think you're getting off that easily," said JT, catching Emma well off guard. "I know what happened at that party, in the backyard. And while it gives me the heebie jeebies, it also causes me to question whether or not the apocalypse is near."  
  
Her response for now was to simply roll her eyes. Of course, JT had to make a joke out of the whole thing. His life seemed like that of a circus clown, always making everyone laugh and extracting the fun qualities from life to live off of. Fun and jokes were his nutrient. However, at a time where Emma was completely numb to emotions in general, so his sarcasm vexed her greatly.  
  
"He kissed me," Emma replied simply as if she were robotically programmed to do so. "I don't know why and I probably don't want to know. I just wish you were the only one who knew about it."  
  
"I'm not a genie, Em, so you really can't wish other that people didn't know," JT grimaced while fearing the wrath of Emma. Of course, he should have expected that the wrath of Emma had been captured in the lost valley of emotions. "Great, just great," Emma sighed heavily as the bricks fell upon her. This just seemed to be another chapter in the book about why Mondays were the work of the devil himself. She opened her locker with JT adorning the right side of her as she meticuosly placed an assortment of school supplies on the shelves. JT continued to babble on about what he considered the signs of the apocalypse. Of course, each reason was followed by a comedic antidote. If the circumstances, she would have added a giggle in the appropriate places. However, she had no motivation to do anything besides wait for each day to end and dread for the beginning of a new one.  
  
"So, do you have any plans to avoid the wrath of Paige," JT questioned curiously as Emma pulled her notebooks out. "I mean, she's a pretty happening lady, but you do not want to see her mad. It's not pretty."  
  
Emma sent him a quasi-glare before uttering, "Thanks for that positive note and for reinforcing the reasons why I shouldn't have even bothered with coming to school today." She groaned, rather aggravated. "Why do I even bother?"  
  
JT raised an eyebrow before going into a chant, "C'mon, Em! You got to be aggressive! Be aggressive!" He examined the blank expression on her face before letting out his own sigh. "Laugh for me, please? You have a nice laugh."  
  
There was simply no way she was to admit why there was no laughter escaping from her. That would involve including the fact that she was depressed over the current situation of her life. Instead, she decided to be rather apathetic towards it all. It masked the possibility of her having to deal with the vast pain bottling up inside. She just hoped that would be another way to keep the cork on the bottle for a while. The whole being avoidant deal ended with some realizing that you were doing just that. She needed to be an adaptive chameleon. However, there was the minute risk that a predator would come along and discover her.  
  
"Hey guys," a feminine voice chirped happily. A feeling of relief came over Emma when the realization that it was Paige never occurred. However, it was Manny, who was probably there just to toy with JT. Or so Emma thought. "Can you believe that they're keeping that Media Immersion sub we've had? I really didn't like her; I mean she's so—"  
  
"Manny," JT said pointedly as a way of attempting to pull a blanket over Emma and shield her from everything that Manny had subtly pointed out. "I mean, um, what was the science homework?"  
  
As the conversation drifted off into the land of homework and shameless flirting, Emma couldn't help but feeling nauseous at the sight. The overwhelming happiness created a knot in her stomach. In the depths of her melodramatic mind, she wanted everyone to apathetic and unable to deal with emotions like she was. However, that was not the case. The wanting of even being content penetrated her heart. This wanting and needing didn't coincide well with her new apathetic outlook.  
  
As the conversation between Manny and JT raged on, Emma decided to casually slip away. They seemed too involved in their conversation to notice her departure. Or if they did, they pulled some excuse out of the air instead of actually taking the brain power to figure out what was wrong. Besides, apathetic little Emma wouldn't be a wanted asset in a conversation of cheerfulness and laughter.  
  
Apathetic. Washed up. Tired. There was no life left in the canvas. All of the colorful patches had faded as knowledge was abundant. There wasn't beauty behind anything anymore. All hope had come crashing down into jagged pieces that could never be assembled ever again. The only things that remained were the memories of a virgin's suicide inflicted by life.  
  
Emma had been tossed out of her trance as the sounds of fighting picked her up and threw her down. Her senses slowly became alert to what was going on. Every aspect of the situation was observed.  
  
"Gavin Reginald Mason," a female voice screeched. It was the voice of the one she had silently feared. The situation involved her. However, she was not the culprit. She was not Spinner's puppeteer. She was just Emma Nelson. She was just a product of a teenage pregnancy. She was just trying to figure out what in heaven's name was going on. When you're apathetic for so long, the highway of the high school social life is a road you don't want to venture onto.  
  
"Paige, I'm sorry," Emma heard Spinner's voice pleading. "I just...I don't know why that happened. I don't know why!"  
  
The embers of Paige ignited once more before she sobbed, "Oh, well, you should have thought of a reason before you kissed her! What were you thinking?! Spin, sometimes I don't get you! I don't know what's going on inside of your head! Ugh, so this is how it's ending."  
  
Emma watched as a confused expression crawled up Spinner's face. "Dude, hold on! I said I was sorry. I mean, but of course I can't mess up or Paige will freak because everything's not going her way! It's Paige's way or the highway."  
  
"So, hon, you proved your point by cheating on me with a boring and anal retentive environmentalist," Paige crossed her arms against her chest. A fence was being built up. The fence kept the pain from entering or leaving. "Way to go, Spin. Way to mess up our superb relationship. By the way, have fun with your little girlfriend. Oh look and here she is to share your joy of wrecking our relationship!"  
  
Paige trudged away with Hazel who had been waiting for her friend at a nearby locker. They, of course, brushed against Emma to somehow prove a point. It was as if the brushing of their shoulders briskly against hers was to place the blame on her. Of course, the details weren't important. Only the vague ideas of it all were important. The ideas that would be passed through the snippy whispers of the Degrassi student body. However, the gossip flew over Emma's head as it slinked into oblivion. There was no reason to care about the ridiculous gossip and slander that crept through the halls of Degrassi. In the end, none of that mattered. Nothing seemed to matter.  
  
"Hey, Nelson," Spinner turned towards Emma. "Dude, I'm sorry if you heard what Paige said. Girls are like, PMSing and stuff."  
  
Emma rolled her eyes, "If you haven't noticed, I'm a girl." Of course, her tone indicated that Spinner was a complete idiot. He was an idiot floating about in the realm of solitude. He and Jimmy had been gradually separating like a cell during mitosis. They were still on relative speaking terms. However, high school pulled you part. Yet again, Emma wasn't an expert on the social life of Spinner. All she knew was that two actors had dropped out. She didn't know where she would find the others.  
  
"Right," Spinner nodded with a glazed expression. "So, dude, are you okay? You seemed really down on Friday."  
  
Emma groaned, "Why do you care? You don't even know anything about me. You don't even know whether or not everything's okay." She started walking away, abandoning the situation. Here she was, walking away from Spinner when he had tried to get an answer out of her. Oh, the irony. The same exact situation had unfolded only two years ago, only this time there was a role reversal.  
  
"I know more than you think," Spinner insisted. "Your name is Emma Nelson; you live on 901 Cherry Brook Road. Your phone number is 551-3109 and this is all I got from your learner's permit which you left in Kwan's room on Friday." He fished through his pocket while finding miscellaneous other items that did not resemble a learner's permit in the least. He caught up to her and handed it over to her. Emma took the permit before stuffing it into the sea of her denim jean pocket.  
  
"Thanks," She replied monotonously. "Well, I should get to homeroom."  
  
"Dude, no one deserves to be all...blah like you've been," Spinner sighed. "You walk around like you're some kind of robot."  
  
Was he the only one had noticed? It was Spinner. Maybe he wasn't an idiotic sexist pig like she had perceived him out to be. Or maybe she could be living in the land where she got the foolish concept that Spinner was the only one that could possibly understand her. When the rest of the world faded into their own selfish pleasures, there was Spinner, looking for another bottle of cheese whiz to down.  
  
"Like right now," He pointed out before waving a hand in front of her face. "Man, you were just like this on Friday night. Smile, Paige says it doesn't cause wrinkles or some crap like that."  
  
Emma rolled her eyes once more, "Yeah, thanks for the beauty tip, Spinner. I really should get to homeroom. But first, I think I should apologize for being rather insulting to you on Friday night. I'm sorry."  
  
Here she was, apologizing to Spinner. She couldn't explain why. There seemed to be no reasons to explain anything anymore, unless it was point blank in front of you. However, this was a bit to the side, so the interpretations weren't likely to be valid.  
  
"Yeah, well, it's okay," Spinner sighed. "I mean, that was like the least of my worries. I deal though, dude. It's not a big deal."  
  
A flame flickered within Emma. It signaled the slightest bit of life. A characteristic of hers that made her who she was started slowly emerging to the surface. However, it was probably one of her least desirable qualities. It was probably one of her malign ones as well.  
  
She spoke with a great deal of curiosity, "Just how do you deal?"  
  
"Uh, look! The bell is gonna ring," He chimed abruptly. "Hey man, meet me after school. Later, Nelson!"  
  
His departure was abrupt, but a sense of finding solace was imbedded within Emma. If only there was some way to will away the pain from every surfacing. There was too much to deal with as is and emotional pain being a side note didn't help in the least bit. She wanted just to take a temporary yet extended break from it all. She just wanted too much than she could have. There in lied one of the many imbedded problems. A break like that could do her a world of good.  
  
As the day went along, it was just another monotonous Monday. The only difference was the whispering that filtered through the air around her. She ignored it, because that's what listless people do best. All she did besides go through the motions of a typical Monday at school was yearn and contemplated. She yearned for the solace she so desperately needed. She yearned for the day to reach its end. She contemplated about Spinner and all of things that were Spinner related. She was intrigued by him and that was all it amounted to. He wasn't her type in the least, though she didn't begin to fathom about what her type might be.  
  
The day ended with relief for Emma. All of those feelings that she wanted so desperately to be fulfilled had the possibility of doing so. There was so much going on and so much opportunity. There seemed to be no dark side of the moon even though the moon had been all dark for the longest time.  
  
There was no waiting for Spinner, however, as Emma spotted him rushing to god knows where. He could have been playing with her mind, just like all of the others had. Everyone wanted to pull her in so many directions as they continued to roll the die and decide how to do so. There was just so much. There was just too much. There was an oppression that had yet to subside. However the oppression was obscured by the curiosity. The curiosity made her feel alive. She no longer felt like a robot as Spinner so delicately had put it.  
  
As Spinner raced to his destination, Emma trailed after him. Of course, she wasn't stalking him in the least. She was stalking the craving that came along with Spinner and his two for one deal. The bricks along the wall were the same for Spinner as they were for Emma as they were passed. Every crack in the sidewalk was the same for the two. Perhaps the pain they shared was the same. Emma knew it was improbable and one half screamed at her asking her why she was even bothering. There was no silencer to stop it, however there was that empty wrenching feeling tearing away at her stomach. That needed to go away as did that voice in the back of her head. Everything and everyone just needed to go away.  
  
He slinked away into an upscale brick house, which Emma recognized as not being the Mason residence. She had been there on the occasion when Kendra had invited her over but that was long ago. That was back in the time of naïve bliss that had gotten buried under the ocean tide. However, it was certain that things would change in someway. It was the evolution of life.  
  
She hopped up the steps, still high on curiosity. The brisk warm air flowed around her as her finger slipped against the doorbell and caused a sound to ring throughout. Then came the sound of footsteps while Emma anticipated seeing who it was.  
  
"Whoa, are you lost," a male voice asked as the door swung open. "Sorry, but the environmentalist anonymous meeting is at the corner of go and away. Now, goodbye!" As the door was about to slam shut, another voice from within the house spoke up.  
  
"Sully, who the hell is at the door," the deep voice asked, slightly annoyed. "Fine, I'll see for myself."  
  
Emma's eyes involuntarily widened when she saw the image of Spinner complete with bloodshot eyes and not particularly looking too attentive. It took a moment for her mind to make the connections necessary to come up with a valid inference regarding the situation at hand. It all seemed so calculated and scientific. If only the rest of life was easy to explain. However, it was a painting that had various interpretations of it. However, none of the interpretations were incorrect but neither were they correct.  
  
"Whoa, Nelson," Spinner laughed while taking a minute to gaze at the blonde. "How did you find me, dude? I mean, I didn't tell you where I was going or anything. Are you stalking me?" He paused for a moment while Emma stared at him. "Oh, snap! I was supposed to meet you somewhere."  
  
"Are you okay," Emma asked with the raise of an eyebrow.  
  
Sully laughed heartily, "Of course he's okay! Now, why don't you run along and do whatever it is you environmentalist hippies do?"  
  
It was completely apparent to Emma that she was not wanted here. However, that seemed to be the case lately. No one particularly wanted depressed little Emma raining on their splendiferous parade. What was she supposed to do though? Was she supposed to forget that her step dad died? Was she supposed to forget how completely distraught her mother was? If she could, then that would have been heaven sent.  
  
"I'll be leaving now," Emma rolled her eyes before turning swiftly around and departing from the porch steps which she had ascended a moment ago. This was such a mistake, trying to have Spinner help her. That was such a laughable thought. Spinner couldn't even help himself. What was Spinner, besides a disgusting dim sexist pig? Nothing, it seemed.  
  
"Nelson, wait up," an incredibly familiar voice yelled as she continued to shuffle away. "Dude, Sully's an ass." She twirled around and was almost face to face with Spinner, considering he had a good few inches on her. "Just forget him and come back."  
  
The situation was incredibly surreal to Emma. Since when did Spinner want her around? She didn't have any free food on her, so what in the world did he want? But what did anyone want?  
  
"And you want me to come back, why," Emma asked with a scoff. "Spinner, what is with you? Normally, you couldn't stand the sight of me and now you're begging me to come back?" She crossed her arms against her chest trying to build a barricade between her and the messy haired blonde that stood in front of her.  
  
"It's just," He trailed off with a soft sigh. "You've been so...not up. I mean, it's like you're in this pit of doom. It's kind of sad, I guess. No one should be feeling that down."  
  
Oh and what did he know about her life? What did anyone know? Probably not much, considering she didn't place the daily events of her life on a billboard for all of Degrassi to see.  
  
"Spinner, what do you know about me," Emma asked bitterly. "Besides, of course, nothing at all."  
  
He raised an eyebrow at her, as if questioning her intelligence right about now. She, of course, figured that he knew nothing about her, besides that he used to tease her mercilessly when she began junior high. Oh, and he had practically ruined her science project while he had claimed that she had ruined his life. To this day, she couldn't even fathom why she supposedly did.  
  
"Dude, you honestly want to know what I know about you," He started with a chuckle. "Just...let me think about it for a moment." He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he stared up at the cloudy sky as if the answers were written above in a neat scrawl.  
  
"Thought of anything yet," Emma asked impatiently.  
  
"Here's what I've got," Spinner started. "You're Emma Nelson, who is in my grade ten English class because...yeah, you know. You've obviously had a completely sucky year because you always look like you got ran over by a mack truck. Ha, mack truck." He let out a hearty chuckle before going on. "Dude, don't you want to be happy?"  
  
Was she a book waiting to be cracked open in read? Emma felt herself being examined under this microscope. Even though he was being just Spinner, it felt almost as though he had known her so well. He had read through every chapter diligently even after his attention span ceased to exist. Maybe she was just plugging her false hope into the equation. There was some sign of land and she was going to try till she could try no more to reach the land.  
  
"Yeah," Emma stated as though it was doodled all over he forehead. "Who wouldn't want to be happy, huh?"  
  
"Now you're getting it, man," Spinner nodded in approval. "Now you're getting it, you're really getting it."  
  
Before she knew it, she trailed behind Spinner as they entered the elaborate house. The sounds of David Bowie filtered throughout as Spinner glanced at Sully, whose head was swaying back and forth along with the enchanting melody.  
  
"And you're listening to this, why," Spinner questioned before flopping onto the leather sofa near the recliner where Sully was sitting in solitude. It seemed as though he was sinking into the sofa to Emma as she sat down beside him, feeling the texture of the soft leather with her fingertips. The music dispensing out of the stereo was enjoyable to her while the commanding of dancing from David Bowie relaxed every stressed cell in her body.  
  
"Because it's the shit," Sully retorted. "Hey man, I have an awesome taste in music. I don't listen to that crap you listen to. Who could even stomach what you listen to anyway?"  
  
"Hey man, I happen to like Limp Bizkit," Spinner defended before picking up the joint from the ash tray on the coffee table. As soon as the billowing flame came to contact with it, the heavy stench of marijuana engulfed the room. "Change the CD, man. Put on something that, you know, doesn't suck."  
  
Emma could feel herself panicking slightly. Here she was, in a completely illegal situation. Every moral and belief she had was screaming at her to just storm out of here at this second. But, it felt so content in here. The music was almost singing a secret lullaby just for her. Even though the smell was becoming more potent, it didn't faze her in the least. Everything just seemed to be completely serene. It was the perfect escape from her home life which had been anything but serene. This seemed to be the remedy.  
  
"Here," She heard a voice say to her while offering the joint to her. It looked so angelic between her slender fingers. She brought it to her lips before letting all of the toxins enter her body. They didn't feel like toxins in the least, but more like synthetic endorphins that were trapped within the rolling paper. The world seemed to sink into a foggy realm of tranquility. All that appeared to remain was David Bowie, the scarlet leather couch, and the sounds of Sully and Spinner arguing over music. Everything just seemed to melt right into place. 


	7. First times

People stared at Emma as she walked lethargically down the hallway. Their eyes pierced her ever so sharply as they ruthless interrogated her. Had they known about the way she had been spending her days lately? Which of course was getting stoned beyond belief with Spinner and Sully.  
  
Did they know that the marijuana was her personal pain killer? Did they know anything at all? Of course they didn't. They were too busy gallivanting around in designer clothing and talking profusely about only themselves. However, there were instances when they spread the plague of gossip. Her two new found friends weren't like that. Well, Sully had the tendency to revert back to his high school boy shenanigans. Hence why she didn't hang out with him as much. She often spent her free time in Spinner's garage, letting those peculiar smelling particles of pot relax her senses. It became their own little slice of heaven. There they chatted about various topics, anything from childhood pets to the smell of grass to the design of fingerprints.  
  
Much to Emma's surprise, Spinner wasn't a complete brain dead moron like she had often thought in the past. Sure, he wasn't too keen in the academic sense, but he was a human sponge. He observed the simplest things that had the tendency to completely faze people. It was as if he spent his whole life just smelling the roses, which was monstrously different compared to Emma's past life. It had been a long time since she had been on one of her little environmental crusades to save some miscellaneous river or endangered animal. She hadn't even bothered going to that pointless environmental marathon to represent Degrassi. Besides, Ashley was the alternate and she had brought home the trophy anyway. Why did they need Emma?  
  
The bell sounded the beginning of the last period of the day. However, there seemed to be no point in going to art class. Did she plan on being some kind of sculptor? That was a negative. Besides, there was other business that had to be attended to. This business was now rather important for Emma's psychological well being.  
  
After the last stragglers ran with celerity to their next class, Emma played a game of hide and go seek with herself and school administration. She began walking stealthily down an empty long corridor that led to the outside world. After pushing open the doors and risking a horrid mark on her permanent record, she was met by a wave of warm air. It was humid air that had met her acquaintance and it wasn't particularly a pleasant meeting. However, there was someone else she was looking to meet. And that particular someone was sitting on the vacant bleachers of the football field.  
  
"Hey," She stated before sitting next to Spinner. "Feel like being generous?"  
  
"Dude, generous is my middle name," He stated with a smirk before handing her the joint he had been taking a hit from. "Besides, sharing is caring."  
  
She put the white blunt to her lips and took a long drag from it before attempting to recline on the scalding hot metal bleachers. It was rather uncomfortable getting her legs burnt to a crisp like the marijuana cigarette she was holding. "So, what class did you escape from," She questioned before glancing over at him casually. "I got out of art myself. We're making clay pots right now and mine looks like a walrus sat on it. Oh well, I was really planning on becoming a sculptor anyway."  
  
"Well, I don't see you as a sculptor or anything," Spinner noted while looking over at her, trying to get an image of Emma in her future career. It didn't really work, because his eyes weren't employers desperately seeking workers at some job fair being held in a hotel. "Yet, I don't know what I see you as. You should be a pastry chef."  
  
"Why would I be a pastry chef," Emma asked with a laugh while Spinner took the joint from between her fingers. "Besides, I can't cook for shit, unless it's something you just add water to and stick into the microwave. That I can possibly do without screwing up."  
  
"If you were a pastry chef, then I could get free pastries from you," Spinner explained simply. She cast him a look that asked the question of what in the world was he thinking, considering she did not possess the ability of reading minds. "What? I like pastries!"  
  
"You can have all of the ones I mess up on making," Emma laughed. "That'll probably be a good majority of them. But you'll get some pastries, don't worry, I'll get you some pastries. That is, before I get fired."  
  
It was bliss, how she could have such moronic conversations with Spinner. There was no worry when she was around him, just contentment and the sounds of hysterical laughter. There was no frantic seeking for signatures on a petition. It was as if she was living another life and had abandoned her old one, leaving it in specks of dust. There was no emotional pain that she had to endure. There was just complete and utter fun.  
  
"Ah, well, at least I have a steady income," Spinner mused before leaning back further on the bleachers. "That will increase considerably after tonight, if I do say so myself. Except for the fact that I totally need to pay Sully back. That sucks a big one."  
  
Emma's curiosity peaked, "And why would this be? Unless you told me and I completely forgot about it. And in that case, why would this be?"  
  
"Shit," Spinner sighed before realizing that he hadn't told Emma. Oh well, things like that with old age combined with a cornucopia of drugs. "There's this party tonight, it's supposed to be huge. I swear I'll make the hugest profit that I have in my life. However, Sully's going to be a complete leech and try to get all that he can."  
  
"Tell him to get his money's worth and then you'll pay him back," Emma advised in a rather know-it-all tone that she had retained from her old life. "If he really wants his money, then he has to work for it. Its common sense, Spin."  
  
Spinner rolled his very blood shot eyes, "Yeah, sure is. Anyway, you want to come? We'll show you a good time, we really will. It's at Heather Sinclair's place. So, you in?"  
  
Truth be told, Emma wasn't exactly a party person. She had often had bad experiences at parties, hence why the dislike for them came about. However, it could prove to be an interesting experience. The only thing that could rain on her parade was the fact that it seemed as though Manny had been keeping an eye on her. It seemed as though every time either Sully or Spinner would make a guest star appearance at her locker, all of Manny's attention was focused on that very moment. It was so surreal, that Manny was concentrating all of her attention on their interaction. How did it possibly affect her in the least?  
  
"I'll be there," Emma replied with a nod. "I just have to check in with the insane head case taking up residence in my house."  
  
"Your mom is not a head case," Spinner countered with a laugh. "Sure, she's a bit bizarre, but she's not exactly a head case."  
  
Emma sighed, "I'm not talking about my mom. She's barely around anymore. She's attempting to be wonder woman by dedicating a massive amount of time at the salon so we can eat and live like normal people."  
  
Spinner nodded, "I see. Well, there's no point in hanging around here, unless we want to become human fried eggs. Normally, I think we should crash at Sully's, but since he has a foot up his ass, it's either your house or my house."  
  
Emma had opened the window that had helped Spinner peer in and observe her home life. She let him know how it was deteriorating and he didn't seem fazed by it at all. But there was still something that led her to become so ashamed of how she was living. She always had this yearning of being the absolute best. She needed that satisfaction as if it were pure and unpolluted oxygen. Even though her personality had been morphed into something completely different than it previously had been, some traits still lingered. Emma wanted these fragments of her old self to be broken so many times that they would just float into oblivion. She just wanted an escape from everything. She wanted to keep running and just never look back ever again.  
  
"My house, I guess," Emma shrugged. "We have a well stocked fridge after Jackie went to the store yesterday." She sighed while rubbing her temples. "Christ, I haven't been feeling anything lately."  
  
Spinner rolled his eyes, "Maybe it's because you only took one hit, smart ass." He smirked while Emma turned to him and glared. "I have to agree with you, man. Frank's inventory lately has sucked. But wait a minute, who the hell is Jackie?"  
  
"My mom's younger cousin," Emma explained before snatching the joint away from Spinner with much celerity. "She's been living with us and is our own personal babysitter for Jack. She also works midnights at some bar where she's trying to save up to buy a motorcycle."  
  
"So, she's a tough chick," Spinner questioned while chuckling. "Nice, very nice. I could see myself with someone like that; I haven't ventured into the field of older women yet." Emma handed the joint over to him before he brought it to his lips and took a hit from it.  
  
"Frank seriously needs to get some good stuff in, damn it." He extinguished the joint before tossing its remains onto the grassy and freshly cut football field off in the distance. He stood up from the bleacher and held his hand out for Emma, which she accepted. He pulled her off of the steaming hot bleacher and they climbed down onto the football field.  
  
They walked off of the school grounds and into a rather desolate neighborhood. It was naked of the luxuries that their neighborhoods contained. There were cars, but not ones you would find in a middle class suburban setting. Instead the cars were rusty and their origins were probably that of fifteen to twenty years ago. The houses looked as though they had escaped the required building codes and their inspectors. It was quite obvious that they weren't anywhere near Emma's house.  
  
"And where would we be," Emma asked curiously but with a touch of annoyance in her tone.  
  
"Well, we both agree that Frank's supply is rather shitty," Spinner explained in a know-it-all tone that was usual indigenous to Emma. "Frank says that the customer is always right, or so he says to the customers at his pretzel stand in the mall. Anyway, I need to stock up for tonight as well, so why not kill two birds with one stone?"  
  
"Because in the literal sense, that's impossible," Emma countered. He glanced at her while shooting her a peculiar look. "But why am I being dragged along? That I don't really get."  
  
Spinner shrugged, "Hell if I know, man. You'll like Frank though. Sure, he's a bit...creepy but he's a good man."  
  
"Um, right," Emma rolled her eyes as they continued to stroll down the sidewalks to their destination. They passed a few miscellaneous stores as well as a piercing parlor as they continued their journey. After a few moments, they arrived at a one floor brick house between a Chinese restaurant and locksmith. The lawn wasn't kept well as shoots of grass shot up towards the sky and weeds choked all of the life that could possibly live in such a habitat. It amazed Emma, how one could not be bothered by having such a disaster for a house. However, Spinner was completely unfazed by the grungy setting.  
  
"And let's hope Frank is actually awake right now," Spinner stated before pressing his finger against the doorbell. "I mean, it's like three in the afternoon. Wait a minute, he actually could be sleeping. Damn it."  
  
Emma stood there, looking down at the ground while a shuffling of footsteps and other random noises could be heard from within the house. A cat screeched loudly and the sound of porcelain shattering escaped from the house and filled Emma and Spinner's ears. They exchanged looks of confusion before the door knob turned and the door opened to reveal a rather portly looking man. He eyed the two teenagers for a moment before recognizing Spinner causing a light bulb to flicker within his head covered with long brown hair.  
  
"Spinner," He greeted him with a jolly tone to his deep voice. "Am I here to approve your activities for the night? Personally, I think you could have done better, like with that chick that lives two streets over, the one with the agent."  
  
"Excuse me," Emma replied in a rather offended tone. "I'm not his activity for the night."  
  
"Be calm, my child," Frank replied in a soothing tone in an attempt to calm down a slightly hostile Emma. "Frank does not mean to be offensive. So I'll apologize if you can get this muffin out of its package."  
  
Emma glanced fearfully at Spinner, who just nodded which subliminally conveyed the message that she should just help Frank with his dilemma involving getting the much desired muffin. The atmosphere of their current location sent waves that flew up and down Emma's spine. She felt uncomfortable, which was a feeling that she hadn't felt in some time. It almost seemed like they had been thrust into an alternate universe, or just the other side of town where Emma had rarely ventured. Sure, her house had become a disaster zone, but she was often found locked up in her room in an attempt to block it out. That was also in combination with her habitual routine that she had created recently.  
  
"Hey, it's hot as hell out," Spinner noted while running a hand through his hair. "Can you let us in, Frank? I'm sure you have a fan in there, so let us in. Plus, I have to talk to you about something."  
  
Frank sighed, "You kids are so impatient, but since I dig you, Spinner, you can come in."  
  
The twenty something man led Spinner and Emma into his house, which was adorned with household objects that were in their wrongful places. A stack of broken porcelain lined the rug and contrasted against the dark green color of it. A black cat leaped over the pile before scampering off into a darkened region of the house. Everything was so still yet so chaotic at the same time. There was no order, the only thing that was in its rightful place was a fan positioned a few feet away from the tattered white couch. Spinner made himself at home on the white couch and patted the seat next to him for Emma to sit there. Meanwhile, Frank plopped on the other side of Spinner before reclining back on the couch and letting the cold air send relief to all of them.  
  
"Blondie, your mission awaits," Frank told Emma as he handed her a muffin which was contained in a sealed plastic prison. She opened up the package before handing it back to Frank, who graciously accepted the muffin before taking a large bite of it.  
  
"What kind is that," Spinner asked curiously as he hungrily eyed the muffin.  
  
"Banana nut," Frank replied incoherently while gobbling up each individual morsel of the muffin and savored each one. Spinner's happy expression dropped as Frank licked his fingers clean of all muffin traces. "So, I'm curious, are you two involved?"  
  
Emma wondered the same thing herself. The only incident where that back up saying "yes" to that statement was at the party. She wasn't sure if becoming closely knit with Spinner was becoming involved with him. There was no clear definition of either and no one took the time to come up with one. Labels didn't matter with them, which was something Emma treasured. They weren't pickle jars, they were people. Adjectives couldn't be permanently assigned to them, because over time people changed. Change was inevitable.  
  
"Nah," Spinner replied casually while he reclined back on the couch. "That's not important though, man. What's important is the quality of your stuff lately. I'm not at all impressed with it."  
  
Frank groaned, "Man, that's what you get when that kid you hang around with demands free packets of frosting. I only do that for you and for the family members. Oh, and of course that girl with the agent, though she hasn't been to the stand lately."  
  
"Sully is being an ass lately though," Spinner retorted. "Emma knows what I'm talking about, man. Yeah, so I need to get some supplies for tonight. I'm going to a party and I should cash out pretty well, if I do say so myself." Emma rolled her eyes at Spinner, who bragged about how successful he was going to be tonight earlier. Spinner amused her, he sparked her curiosity.  
  
"Ah, I wish you luck," Frank nodded. "Is this the party across the street from my boss?"  
  
"No, this would be the one across the street from the guy who works at Dairy Queen," Spinner explained while Emma's eyes examined the drug paraphernalia that was carelessly scattered in a suitcase that sat still on the coffee table. Everything glittered in front of her eyes, there was just so much there. "See anything you like?"  
  
Emma was jolted out of her state of observation as she glanced at Spinner who was looking at her curiously. She smiled vaguely before continuing to examine the contents of the suitcase. She had never seen anything of the sort before, except in her health class textbooks. In those books, everything looked so frightening, as if it was going to morph into a dragon and breathe heavy fire which would burn you to the core. However, up close everything looked so magical and inviting. It was apparent that marijuana no longer left her feeling satisfied. It could have been the kind she had smoked today and it probably was. Emma was impatient though. She needed a quick rush of pleasure and bliss that would come when she demanded it.  
  
"I'm going to probably need some of your essential club drugs, my good man," Spinner replied while continuing to examine the inventory. "As well as some of your finest pot, which I expect to be the finest." "You're demanding," Frank noted while giving Spinner his requested items out of the suitcase. "However, you demand drugs and I demand money. It's a cycle, child. But first, it seems as though blondie here has a bit of a craving for some pretty potent stuff. Lady, you're dancing with danger there. You really are."  
  
Emma was thrown out of her trance, "What? Its okay, I was just...window shopping or something. You know, looking at everything but not actually buying anything." She glanced downward for a moment, feeling slightly embarrassed.  
  
"Damn it," Frank muttered as he slurped the last saccharine tasting drops from his slurpie. "Children, I have to run up to the seven-eleven and get some more slurpies for the house. I'll be back, children. Oh, I have to tell you about a very good deal you'll make tonight, Spinner"  
  
Frank departed from the house, leaving Spinner and Emma in front of the suitcase. Spinner was busy flipping through the comic section of a paper from five weeks ago while Emma just continued to stare, her eyes boring into the contents of a Ziploc baggie filled with white powder. It looked as if it were fairy dust, incredibly magical and could transform anything into anything.  
  
She recalled a time where she was about six years old; her mom had brought her to the mall Santa Claus. At the time, she asked him for fairy dust so she could make her doll her best friend. She remembered the man just laughing at her, saying how fairy dust wasn't real. She thought then that if she had her fairy dust, she could turn him into a frog. That would show him. That would show him that she was invincible. No one would even think about bring Emma Nelson down. She stood on her pedestal, smiling and waving to everyone, being the epitome of perfection and goodness. No one would dare push her off in her moment of glory.  
  
"Are you sure you're not interested in it," Spinner asked smirking, as if he were cosmetics salesmen, begging her to try the new rouge lipstick. "Can't say I haven't tried that before. Mostly because I haven't had the balls to do so. But hey man, first time for everything. You can't play safe your entire life and expect to truly live." To Spinner, this was the most profound statement he ever made. However, to Emma it was thought provoking. His words entranced her as she waited for an epiphany to come and strike her with knowledge.  
  
"And what would that be," Emma asked as she plucked the Ziploc bag from its home. It looked so angelic and beautiful just laying there in the bag. Each white speck was an individual speck of beauty. It captivated her. She didn't know what it was; she didn't know what it did. This curiosity was overtaking her and seizing her.  
  
"That would be heroin," Spinner identified the substance in the clear bag gazing back at them. She glanced at him with a needy expression painted on her face. She needed to do it. It looked so beautiful. She wanted to be beautiful. She wanted to be everything that she wasn't. She just wanted and wanted so much that it frustrated her when she didn't get what she wanted.  
  
"You want to do some," Spinner questioned while Emma's eyes bored into his. "Do you want me to join you or something?"  
  
"That would be nice," Emma continued to attempt to persuade him while still staring into his eyes. She wanted to pierce him and get him to go along with her. Sure, there was the looming choice of doing it alone. But that's what bothered her, being alone. She craved human interaction. She had been abandoned many times before and hated every solo second afterwards.  
  
"Why," Spinner asked. "I mean, if you want to do it, then just do it."  
  
"Have you ever gotten high alone, Spinner," Emma asked him as her eyes continued to stare into his. Her eyes were politicians, persuading his to vote her way. She wanted to win the election, she desperately wanted to. All he had to do was cast the winning vote. "I've wanted to. I didn't want to be lonely though, it didn't seem fun to be lonely. Just try this once, for me. It's the only favor I'll ask of you." She attempted to make the election a done deal as she pouted. Sure, she was acting juvenile, but she was creeping around on Spinner's front now. Though she respected him more than she had in grade eight, she still knew that she had to bring herself to his level to get what she wanted.  
  
"Dude, just this once," Spinner finally broke into bite size pieces for Emma to gobble up. "It can be like the free samples of cheese at the deli." With that, he slowly grabbed the bag that was entangled in Emma's fingers. He examined it meticulously for a rather drawn out moment before finally uttering something. "I...think you snort it, man."  
  
"It's heroin," Emma stated before clawing the bag and snatching it from Spinner's loose grip. "You can smoke it, inject it, or snort it." He glanced at her with a look of confusion and surprise, which was caused by the fact that he didn't know that she, knew about how you could possibly possess that information. "What? I had to do a health project on it in eighth grade."  
  
"Well, you seem to be the expert here," Spinner noted while reclining back. "So, what are we going to do with it?"  
  
"You're the more experienced one," Emma countered. "The longer we debate about this, the sooner Frank will come back."  
  
"Well, there's a straw over there," Spinner observed while spotting a wrapper enwrapped straw on the table near an empty cup that once contained the sugary substance known as a slurpee. His fingers crawled over to the straw before wrapping around the long and skinny object. While Spinner meticulously unwrapped it, Emma still held onto the bag, not sure what to do with its contents being held in their flimsy plastic prison.  
  
"What am I supposed to do with this," Emma questioned unsurely.  
  
Spinner groaned, "You know what, I'll do it. But for future experience, you do it in lines, like the coke head known as Sully was doing yesterday. Now, watch and learn." He took a piece of flimsy cardboard that had been part of a box of cheese crackers and started making slender lines of sparkling white dust. Each one of them seemed to glow in contrast to the black coffee table. He glanced over to her before giving her the straw. "Here you go, milady."  
  
The straw that was now shaking hands with her nose cautiously met the line of pure white heroin. She wasn't sure how much to snort, she wasn't sure about anything. It wasn't true to Emma's character to be unsure about something. Normally, she just dove right into everything after knowing extensively about what she was diving into. But the white substance sprinkled on the table looked so beautiful. It was just screaming to her and begging her to let it filter throughout her body.  
  
Emma felt her body splash into the water as the heroin was pulled up and into the straw before entering her nasal cavity. The straw continued to ride along the road of white as it disappeared into oblivion. After the line had ceased to exist, she did another one before she slowly inhaled once more. She waited for something similar to a humongous epiphany to come down and strike her.  
  
"Do you feel anything," Spinner questioned curiously as Emma started to sink into a sea of corduroy.  
  
"I feel...so tired," Emma remarked sleepily while staring straight at the ceiling. "I feel so nice though. I feel really nice. You should try some." She felt herself slipping into a comfortable haze. The corduroy was slowly engulfing her as her eye lids started to pull a set of blinds over her eyes. However, the blinds weren't effective because her eyes couldn't stay shut. She hazily watched as Spinner imitated what she had done while smiling contently.  
  
Spinner plunged into the corduroy as Emma glanced over at him. He was lying on his side while she was sitting yet sinking into the couch. To Emma, he looked so much more content than she did. She lay down in front of him while feeling the haze continuing to overwhelm her.  
  
"Man, this is awesome," Spinner stated slowly while breathing each one of his words. His chin fit into the curve of Emma's shoulder as the feeling of extreme content grazed over them. He caught a whiff of a fruity smell being emitted from Emma's hair. "You smell like a peach."  
  
"I like peaches," Emma stated sleepily while feeling the most relaxed she had in ages. Her nerves weren't meant to be felt anymore as she couldn't feel Spinner's chin digging into her shoulder blade. The marijuana lacked this quality of being able to drift off into a land where only you and the person you were with at the moment existed. "Spinner?"

"Huh," He stated drowsily.  
  
"We need more of this."


	8. Then the morning comes

Waking up to a pounding sensation radiation through her forehead was not something Emma relished in the least. Her eyes managed to slowly open and attempt to adjust to the blinding sunlight creeping in through her small basement window. The side of her face was pushed into the cotton pillowcase which was painted with smeared make up that had been diligently applied the night before. All of the primping and anticipating hardly seemed to be worth it if all she got in return was a head ache and a hazy recount of the night before. There were certain aspects of the evening that could actually be remembered but they were only single verbs with the occasional noun that the verbs linked. Everything else seemed to have been erased completely from the evening.

She pushed the sea of cotton and polyester away before realizing that she was still adorned in last night's party attire. Her upper body was wrapped in a peach colored tank top whose edges were lined with coordinating lace. Her lower body was engulfed in loose dark denim. A searing pain could be felt in her feet that were abandoned by a set of white platform sandals that were carelessly tossed on the carpet. The location of the footwear didn't matter at all. All that mattered was the overwhelming need for some pain killers right about now. However, one of the pain killers that Emma cherished was the cause of her morning after suffering. Yet, her pain killer from the night before had worked in combination with many other foreign substances that Emma would have never even considered having them put into her body. Everything lately had been so foreign and new. For once, it felt as thought she was on a wonderful vacation that brought her joy and relaxation. It was what she had wanted for the longest time and it had been handed to her on a shiny silver platter.

Somehow she managed to carry herself from her bed to the shower on the ground level floor. The grime from smeared and encrusted make-up could be as a greasy film covering clear and smooth skin. She needed to wash away the events of the night before. The only problem was she couldn't wash away what she couldn't see. She remembered a few vague things that couldn't help to put the puzzle together. There was something involving a table. There was something involving Heather Sinclair being bombarded with requests to change her music taste before she made everyone in a five mile radius deaf. The last something seemed to stick out in Emma's mind the most. It had a bright colored flag hanging off of it and flapping in the breeze. This something involved the back seat of a black car that had dropped her off, leaving her to crawl into the depths of her basement bedroom.

She was greeted by a storm of tepid beads of water that heated her tired body. The scent of peach body wash permeated through out the air as Emma attempted to awake herself up from her exhausted state. All she wanted to do was lie down on her bed with a baggie full of heroin adorning her nightstand. It seemed so surreal, doing the drug she had researched for her eighth grade health project. At that time she was educated on the many dangers of the drug. Now the knowledge of those dangers escaped her. However, the knowledge of the pleasurable effects it brought was running rampant through out her brain. She should have had the money to buy some of her beloved fairy dust from Spinner after he had obtained it from Frank. However, there was a considerable lack of money in the Nelson household these days.

After cleaning the traces of Friday night away, she made her way to her room to find some suitable clothing. She dressed herself in a tank top that was eerily similar to the one she had worn the night before, with the exception of its dark crimson color. Her legs were entrapped in a small denim prison as they made their way back up the stairs to look for something slightly nourishing to fill the empty pit of her stomach.

Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was unorganized and a disaster zone waiting for government aid to help it. In the beginning of the era of chaos, Emma had tried to piece everything back together and get everyone back on their feet again. After a while, it didn't seem to have a point. Eventually, the area that Emma had tidied up would be thrown into a dingy pit of doom that was littered with trash, sorrow, and disorder.

"Emma, you're up," stated a young blonde woman who resided at the table. She pushed back the sea of wavy hair concealing her hard green eyes while glancing at the semi-awake girl who was rummaging through the fridge. "There's still some cream cheese for bagels, if you want any. Your mom told me how you like bagels."

Emma swiveled around and turned towards the table before saying, "If I eat anything, it's probably going to meet the toilet." She held her head while she could feel her brain pounding against her skull. She vaguely remembered hearing Snake often vomiting after chemotherapy treatments, but quickly pushed the thought out of her mind before making her way over towards the table. She made the wooden chair her temporary home as her elbows pressed into the wood and her head was being cradled in her slender hands.

"Rough night," the older blonde questioned Emma. "I've been there, done that. High school wasn't exactly my finest hour, believe me."

"You could say that, Jackie," Emma croaked before making a bassinet with her arms on the table and slowly placing her head in it. She wanted so badly as to crawl in her bed and just remain there until her life was over. However, she craved that feeling that the heroin had given her the day and night before. The content feeling that flowed over her was something she had never experienced in her life. All of her life, she was high on a constant flow of adrenaline that continually pumped through her veins. Two months ago, however, the adrenaline ceased to flow and abandoned her. She couldn't feel a rush but she couldn't feel content. All she felt was a surge of discomfort and numbness.

"You can go back to bed, if you want," Jackie pointed out while slowly stabbing at her syrup bathed pancakes. "Your mom went out to lunch with Caitlin and took Jack along."

"Mom seems to be out a lot lately," Emma sighed while rubbing a strand of her wet blonde hair between her fingers. Her mother's constant absence led to a feeling of abandonment in Emma. She had cast her aside, taken her baby brother with her, and left her with someone who would supposedly watch over her. Of course, this someone was only about six years older than Emma. Jackie didn't at all reek of parental support and guidance, but a source of psuedo-company, so Emma wouldn't be alone in the physical sense.

She glanced up at Emma, "She's a busy woman, I suppose. I mean, she has an entire household to run by herself. I don't think I'm that much of a help. I barely know how to cook water without burning it!" She chuckled softly while still occasionally munching on her flooded pancakes.

Emma picked her head up from its position on the wooden table and attempted to maintain her state of barely being awake. Why did her mother leave her to be like this? It was obvious that Jackie had no maternal bone in her food deprived body. Spike would sometimes be gone the entire day either working or just doing so-called errands. Her absence left Jackie to take care of Jack, or attempt to do so. Sure, she was a decent babysitter. She was no child batterer. She could change and feed and do other tasks that would be beneficial to the baby. However, she couldn't provide the maternal vibes that Spike sent off. She couldn't provide them to Jack or to Emma. She was barely an adult herself and still needed to learn how to survive by herself.

"I see," Emma nodded vaguely before gazing forlornly out the window. She awaited a bearer of normalcy to ring the doorbell and deliver stability and calmness to the Nelson household. Instead she was greeted by a shower of rain outside the window that would help the grass become green and bring life to the plants. The rain would bring cancellations to various sports events and company picnics. It would bring boredom to hyperactive children who craved an old fashioned game of kickball. It would bring a headache to the parents of these children who were cooped up with them for all of the day. Every action had a reaction. Even if the action was something as miniscule as a change in the weather, there were many reactions to that event.

Jackie gazed out the window and discovered the rainy weather, "Whoa, how long has it been raining for?" Suddenly, the doorbell chimed loudly throughout the house. Emma could imagine the situation if her mother and Jack were home. Her mother would be scrambling around; trying to make sure Jack didn't awake from his nap. Jackie would be filing her nails and completely oblivious to the persistent ringing leaving Emma to have to greet the person behind the door.

"And now the doorbell is ringing," Jackie exclaimed in shock. "I'll go get that for you."

She scampered off to silence the persistently ringing doorbell while Emma felt that it was fit to rest her head on the table. At the time she lacked the effort to go and get some ibuprofen to sooth her headache. So she attempted to rest the throbbing pain out of her head while Jackie chattered on loudly to the person at the door.

"Why _hello_ there," She chirped excitedly. "May I please help you?"

"Uh, I'm looking for Emma," a recognizable male voice stated. At the moment of recognizing who Jackie was chattering to, she rose to her feet and managed to get herself to the door before he was being subjected to anymore of Jackie's inane behavior. Once she reached the door, Jackie and the visitor both glanced at her, both relieved at her appearance. Jackie was relieved because she no longer had to entertain the visitor. The visitor was relieved because they were no longer subjected to Jackie's squirrel like chattering that was several decibels louder than a person should be subjected to, or so it seemed. Jackie squeaked on about having to do the laundry, though that was a complete and utter lie. Her perfectly manicured hands never dared to touch the cold plastic dial or any other household appliance.

"Um, what brings you here," Emma asked casually while swiping a piece of blonde hair out of her eyes. Her guest was enveloped in a film of beads of water from the rain storm raging on outside. An occasional small rumble of thunder accompanied the millions of rain droplets that greeted the ground.

Spinner glanced at her, "We need to…talk." He stuffed his hands in his pockets, as if they were roaming around a desert searching for a sparkling oasis. However, there was a tinge of uncomfortable sound lingering in his voice. Emma looked up at him, her face bright with all shades of complete confusion.

"About what," she questioned while raising an eyebrow with her face still bright with all shades of complete confusion. "What's going on?"

He let out a sigh, "Um, can I come in?"

She nodded before becoming his own tour guide for his trip around the Nelson house. Obviously whatever the subject that needed to be talked about was something of a serious matter. That is why Emma attempted to think of where they would be undisturbed by Jackie and her interrogating tendencies. So they hopped on the stair road that led down to the basement which Spinner liked to call "Emma's cave of doom". At first, Emma wasn't too fond of that name, but after a few hits from a marijuana joint, it sounded positively hilarious. They encountered demon clothes that were attacking the floor with their dangerous cotton and polyester fibers. However, they both were safe and sound as Emma sat on her bed and Spinner made his home in a swiveling desk chair.

"Spinner, what's going on," Emma shattered the brief awkward silence with questioning.

She expected him to be hesitant, but instead he let out a laugh. Emma was painted with every single shade of confusion possible as she gave him a blank stare. There was confusion and hesitation. There were uncomfortable vibes that needed to be destroyed by revealing the truth, whether it was horrible or not.

"Funny you should ask that," He laughed once again. "Because obviously last night, there was…something going on, if you know what I mean."

Realization was a hard concept to master, especially when the complication of someone being disgustingly vague was added into the equation. It took Emma a few moments to realize what in the world Spinner had meant. It was possibly a good deal of luck that she had remembered those three particular events from last night while the other ones were left to become unsolved mysteries fit for prime time television.

Emma's blank stare was promptly replaced by a look of absolutely shock with subliminal disgust. Her brown eyes shook hands with the floor as the swiveling chair started to run across the floor.

"Aren't you going to say anything," Spinner replied simply. "Hello? Earth to Emma!"

She waited for the words to be vomited out of her mouth like they usually would. However, this was a situation she was quite foreign too. She had never become uninhibited and absorbed every fiber of a person. Ever since the first incident that had coincidentally taken place at a party, she seemed to be catapulted into the air that was polluted with odd occurrences.

"Well then," Spinner shattered yet another sheet of awkwardness. "I can't expect you jumping my bones again anytime soon." He smirked slightly. "Or maybe you're just embarrassed to admit it. I think that's it."

Emma peered up at him while her eyes became billboards that were strictly anti-wanting Spinner propaganda. It was really a laughable concept, wanting Spinner in a pure state of mind that did not involve hypnosis, witch craft, drugs, or brainwashing. They were friends who shared drugs, childhood stories, and junk food. She still didn't know why he had kissed her that night that seemed to stick out in infamy. That night had been quickly replaced by the hazy events of last night.

"In fact, I want us to go drive on down to an all night chapel tonight so we can get hitched in secrecy," Emma replied with her voice dripping in acidic sarcasm. "Anyway, do you have a present for me?"

He reached into his pockets before pulling out a small plastic bag. White powder was entrapped in the plastic bag and its flimsy walls. He then tossed it to Emma, who examined it closely like she had the day before with the bag she discovered in Frank's house.

"Well, if that's all I'm here for," Spinner started before getting up from the revolving chair. "Then I better get going and spend some quality time with the television."

"What do I owe you," Emma asked as he was making his way to the steps. "I don't have much money, but I'll share some with you to make up for that. We could even do some right now. I'm sorry if you felt rejected in some way after last night. I was completely out of it, okay?"

"Rejected? Dude," He started with a laugh. "_You_ came onto _me_." He laughed more when he saw the look of complete embarrassment climb up Emma's face. Any embarrassing situation could have been morphed into a comedy skit for Spinner. It amazed Emma, how easily he could do that. She envied his ability to do just this, because she lacked that ability.

"Do you want to do it or not," Emma asked again but quite abruptly. "God, my head is killing me." She rubbed her temples, her fingers trying to act as erasers to the pain. However, her fingers are horrible actors and the job doesn't get done. However, another painkiller arrived at the side of her bed before sitting down right next to her. "You get the honors."

"Uh, thanks," He said slowly and unsurely, however he pushed his hesitation to the side. He reached over for a flat surface to put a bit of the heroin on and came across a CD. Before sprinkling the heroin on it, he flipped it over to see what music the CD contained within it. An amused expression crept on his face as he read "Best of U2 1980-90". Spinner glanced at Emma before rolling his eyes.

"Man, you listen to this," He laughed.   
  
Emma groaned, "Ugh, I went through a whole U2 phase last year, with how Bono used to be advocating for the environment and what not."

"Okay then," He continued to laugh as the CD became covered with powder. After making what appeared to resemble some kind of line, Spinner took a dollar bill from his pocket and tightly rolled it up to create some kind of device that could be used to snort the drug. The rolled up dollar bill met the opening of his nostril and created a vortex for the heroin to go through until it was snugly inside his nasal cavity. After the small line ceased to exist, he did another small one.

She was then handed over the CD along with the rolled up dollar bill and let herself become intoxicated with the white powder. Emma needed glue that would hold everything together so nothing could crumble into small pieces. This was the answer to her prayers. After being on the verge of becoming broken for three months, she needed to ensure that she wouldn't break. Emma Nelson would never show a shred of weakness. Her job was to show others their own weaknesses. She needed to nitpick until she was blue in the face. Everyone needed to have their ideals forced upon them because with those ideals, they'd be able to have the world become a better place. But sometimes that job got so tiring. At times she wished it was a hobby like knitting. Emma needed to take a vacation from herself, it was mandatory in the process of keeping her crumbling sanity.

Emma leaned back while waiting for that blissful feeling to be placed in her lap so she could easily experience it. She glanced at Spinner with glazed over eyes and he responded with a foggy smile. Slowly but surely, the blissful feeling possessed her after about five minutes which seemed like ages.

"God, this feels absolutely wonderful," She mused while softly laughing. "How much money did you make last night?"

Spinner lied down next to her with a grin plastered across his face. He turned to her before revealing his income from the hazy night before.

"Enough," He started off casually. "I pulled in a good amount."

Emma sighed wistfully, "I wish I had money, and then I could possibly buy a car which would enable me to get the hell out of here whenever I can. That would be the best thing ever." She shook her head while her hand drifted over Spinner's shoulder slowly.

"You don't have to have a car, dude," Spinner started. "I mean…you can just go, like, mentally. I do it all the time, it's not that hard." He laughed before nudging his head farther into the pillow it was resting upon. Emma smiled wider while inching closer to him.

"You're so fucking smart," She chuckled before proceeding to gravitate over towards him and getting lost in the realm of Spinner. The amount of heroin flowing through her body made the endorphins create a powerful rush as she felt her stomach drop to her knees. Now she was a traveler who had become lost after getting separated from the tour guide. She wanted to be found and go back on the tour again and search the jungles. However, a kind villager had become her new tour guide, showing her the traits that were indigenous to their town. Now she just wanted to reside in this town forever and ever because she couldn't move right about now. Her body was frozen and an iceberg was currently crushing her. She could feel her arms becoming heavy with frost that slowly gathered on them.

After a certain point, everything started to melt into a haze. She couldn't concentrate on everything that was going on. There was just too much. She wanted everything to halt to a complete stop and start again slowly. However, she did nothing. Yet, she did much. It was a complicated matter that she couldn't begin to decipher without the help of an ancillary device. Everything ceased to exist though. The events that had unfolded just ended as quickly as they began. He vanished as quickly as he had appeared in her doorway only a short time ago. Now she was alone.

Emma sat on her bed in a trance for a few hours, coming down from the powerful opiate. During that time, several things occurred. She mourned the loss of innocence while contemplating on whether or not it was a homicide or a suicide. After a half hour of thought, she decided on an assisted suicide as a middle ground. She then erupted into a state of silent anger for the last part of her trance before she finally snapped into two ragged pieces.

Before she knew it, she was chucking things around her room while she felt herself slowly crumbling into a pile of dust. There was shouting and screaming of profanities, that would probably have awakened poor little Jack if his mother hadn't dragged him out to escape their household. They expected Jackie to be able to fill Spike's shoes while she was missing in action or they _expected_ Emma to take care of herself. They _expected _Emma to deal with Snake's cancer inflicted death; however she had yet to deal. They _expected_ her to bring home the gold in the environmental marathon that she had dropped out of. Her teachers and mother _expected_ high grades. Her friends _expected_ her to be there for them when they needed someone, but they weren't there for her when _she_ needed them.

Everyone just kept on expecting everything from her. She was the resident whore of expectations in Degrassi. Frankly, she was tired of being expected to do things at everyone's leisure. What about her? She had spent a majority of her life gallivanting around about issues that didn't pertain to her at all. Would the fact that she didn't cut apart the six pack rings and it ended up being the untimely end for a dolphin really affect her? Not particularly. Did the fact that someone was starving in a third world country concern her frustration over life in general? Not at all. All she did was give and give until she was bare. No one gave her anything in return.

Frankly, she was tired of driving on this one way street. The only person out there who seemed to actually care about her in the least was Spinner. When she had fallen down, he helped to pick her back up. He even soothed the pain from the fall. No one could honestly match what he did. After all of those years of thinking that Spinner was a lethargic insensitive sexist jerk, the blindfold came undone and now she could finally see.

Now her hands were busy clawing away at a poster concerning endangered giant pandas. Her arms contained shambles of the poster as she felt herself crumbling even more so. Emma could feel a build up of tears in her eyes, something that she hadn't felt in a long time. Before she was apathetic and afterwards she was numb. She didn't want to be exposed. She couldn't be exposed. Emma Nelson was strong and fortified, like an ancient monument that was still in all of its glory in present day.

Out of the corner of her eye, there was a sparkling white bag. A smile erupted across her face as she stalked over towards the night stand where the bag cooed a secret lullaby for her. She created a line that danced before her eyes as she fished around for a dollar bill to roll up. Her hands came upon a five dollar bill that had been stashed away in her wallet, ready to be rolled.

Her fingers tightly rolled it before it was acceptable to aid in snorting the heroin. The rolled up dollar bill skipped along that line of the opiate in a tornado like fashion. Heroin got caught in the vortex and became ready to heal the pain. She wiped the excess powder from the ridge of her nostril before looking at that bag. The bag needed to be shunned away from prying eyes. Emma spotted a doll sitting on a shelf. It begged to be the location for the drug. She gave into the doll's pleading by slowly disassembling the head from the body.

This doll had given her so much childhood angst. Its head had the tendency to fall off when she played too roughly with it. However, no one touched the doll anymore. No one was around to touch it. The bag was stuffed into the head of the doll as the head was slowly placed back on the body.

That familiar haze came over her from before as she made her way back over to her bed. Before the journey was complete, she stepped on the plush monkey who she had fondly called Mr. Bananas back in her childhood. Emma scooped up Mr. Bananas before retreating to her bed and lying down. The small plush monkey was gripped against Emma's body as the haze fell upon her. It felt so good. She smiled as contentment washed over her. There were no worries on what anyone might say about her room. There were no worries about what had happened a few hours ago.

There was nothing but absolute serenity.


	9. Unreal Insanity

Her face was leaning against the windshield as the brisk November wind whirled outside the black car. The road seemed to blend in with the rest of the darkness living outside the world of the car. She was merely an observer of the other cars on the road being bathed in headlights and traffic lights. There was an intense feeling of isolation from the non- addicts in the world. She was in a constant of bliss. However, there would be the occasional tug on the thread that would attempt to rip that sheet to shreds. The rip would be mended by the expertise of a needle that was customized to pierce the skin and be a messenger that brought beautiful drugs.  
  
The whole start of the needle arm exchange was not that worthy of a Hollywood movie. The scene would be cut and abandoned on the cutting room floor. It'd be left to rot with all of those miscellaneous scenes that could possibly be worthy for DVD extras or possibly even trivia for movie buffs sprinkled throughout the world. The start had been the result of curiosity and boredom on a tropical summer night. Since then, it the needle arm exchange had made its way to Emma's daily routine. It was as necessary as calcium is to bones. If the calcium is not delivered to the bones, the bones become frail and weak. If she lacked heroin in her system, she would crumble. Her emotional stability would crumble. Her physiology would crumble. Her mental function would crumble. Without heroin, she was nothing more than a pile of dust.  
  
Spinner glanced at her from the other side of the backseat as the car drove along the lit road. Her vacant eyes peered over at him before she sent him a vague smile before her face was plastered up against the window once again. Unexplainable depression filled her to the core right about now. She didn't want to go see Spinner looking like he was having epileptic attacks as he played the drums. She didn't want to see Sully passing glances at other girls as his whiny new girlfriend complained about it. She wanted to see herself on the couch basking in the glow of the television as she slowly descended from a heroin high. However, she had gotten dragged into this god knows how. She honestly didn't care anymore.  
  
"Sully, are we there yet," Courtney whined from the passenger seat. If this had been any other male, she would have questioned why they kept Courtney around. However, it was Sully. Sully kept anyone around that would hand out sexual favors on command and had an IQ that was lower than their weight.  
  
The brunette in the front seat had been picked up by Sully at a night club sometime during mid-August. Since that day, they had been entangled in a romance fit for a cheesy television drama. There was fighting and sex and drugs. It would entrance the viewer and hook them in for each week when a new episode made its debut. As Emma knew from experience, Sully's poison of choice was pure Columbian Cocaine. Courtney wasn't an addict. She wasn't one of them. She wasn't worthy of making their former threesome into a foursome. However, as the bright and vivid lights sailed around on the dance floor, a pearly white pill would drop down her throat. She would only do it recreationally, which didn't fit in with the other three. Therefore, she didn't belong.  
  
They pulled into the parking lot that was enwrapped in a stale air mass that seemed to hang above the club. The doors snapped open as Emma gazed at the blank sky. Pulsing music that normally stumbled from the brick building was absent. Dead quiet air was its substitute until a car with the sounds of Pink Floyd thrashing about pulled in the parking space next to them. A curly haired seventeen year old Craig Manning climbed out before acknowledging the members of the foursome while they acknowledged him. Courtney acknowledged him with a bright flirtatious smile that Sully didn't seem to notice or be fazed by. Sully greeted him with a guy nod before leading Courtney towards the club leaving Emma and Spinner to interact with Craig. Craig appeared to have an earthquake running through his body, ready to split him into two jagged pieces.  
  
"Dude, you have nothing to worry about tonight," Spinner reassured him. "We're going to kick some serious ass." Craig continued to have the earthquake surge through him, causing an eyebrow raise from Emma.  
  
Craig growled, "I'm not worrying, it's just that we're only an opening act for Whores on Parade. It's like, everyone's here to see them and not us. Whores on Parade is made up of a bunch of guys in their thirties who are legends back in Toronto."  
  
Spinner stared at him blankly, "Huh? Dude, why aren't you celebrating the fact that we're opening for a bunch of guys who are legends back in Toronto?"  
  
"You get a new perspective on things once you've been up for five days and counting," Craig sighed before running his tremor filled hand through the field of dark brown curly hair. "Speaking of which, you do have my shit, don't you?"  
  
Emma had observed numerous drug deals since she had started hanging around with Spinner. At times, she didn't know what they were. To the eyes of the public, they were a mismatched couple roaming the streets. They were a break-up ready to happen if someone lit the dynamite. To the eyes of their addict friends, they were friends who had the tendency to have benefits when they were intoxicated. However, to Emma, it was a mixture of that. Everything she had with Spinner just blurred together, making a unique situation she never experienced before. It was as refreshing as ice cold water dancing on your tongue and pushing the parched feeling off the dance floor. For once, she felt alive. As the needle pierced her skin, it was then that she was pounded with the realization that she wasn't an empty vessel. As the heroin blocked opiate receptors and created an illusion of perfection, everything was fantastic. For once in her life, she was immune to all of the hell spawn fire she was entrapped in. There was no crying baby to take care of. There were thoughts of death and cancer attempting to haunt here. There was no moronic live-in cousin. There was no mother that barely paid attention to Emma anymore. There was just perfection and the craving for it once it escaped her for a minute or so.  
  
"Of course I do, dude," Spinner replied before being a fisherman to his pockets and searching for a large bass to take a picture with and put on a mantel with other pictures. A bag filled with white powder with clumps of mountains through out was fished out of his pockets instead. He handed the bag over to Craig, whose hands hugged it. "Fresh from Montreal, now pay up."  
  
Craig fumbled through his pockets before pulling out crinkled green paper that would pay for the drug he seemed to be in desperate need for. He muttered numbers as he placed the dollar bills in Spinner's hand which strangled the money before stuffing it into a pocket to die. A smile enveloped onto Craig's face as he shouted a thanks to Spinner before disappearing into the depths of the brick building. Silence echoed from the building as the traffic passing by scattered about Emma's ears. She couldn't wrap her mind around the thought of Craig Manning being addicted to any drug at all. Even when the whole love triangle involving her best friend, Craig, and former fellow environmental crusader was exposed, she couldn't manage to get the image of an eight year old Craig out of her head. There were no words etched across his forehead saying "cheater" and "drug addict". The tainting of Craig Manning had come much to Emma's surprise. It quite astounding, how the deeper she dug into this, the more people there were that seemed to be under the spell of drugs.  
  
"Manning's such a speed freak," Spinner laughed before he wrapped his arm around Emma's waist. At the moment, she wanted to run back into the darkness of the car and answer the cries of her arm that screamed for her to create yet another bruise on her arm from the touch of the needle. After that, she wanted to hot wire Sully's black BMW and hightail it back to her house. However, she was here supposedly for Spinner and Downtown Sasquatch. She only personally knew half of the band and the other half she passed in the hallways at school without so much as a hello. Emma knew Jimmy as the star of the basketball team, boyfriend of Hazel Aden, and Mr. Popularity. Meanwhile, Emma barely knew anything about Marco except for the fact that he was gay. He seemed like a half way decent guy, but they never really bothered to give each other the time of day.  
  
They entered the stale brick building that was filled with the stench of cigarette smoke from some of the people scattered about the tables. The bartenders were at their stations, armed with various bottles of alcohol that were aching to be poured into glasses and intoxicate the crowd at the rotting wood tables. The whole scene seemed horribly unattractive to Emma. At the moment, she honestly couldn't care less about this whole opening act thing for the band. It just seemed to be brought upon by sympathy for them because all they were was an organized mess of instruments playing raucously together in some kind of bizarre melody that was accompanied by Craig and his lyrics that were drenched in being incomprehensible.  
  
Spinner turned to her, "Well, wish me luck. I'll see you later!" He pranced off towards the back part of the building, leaving Emma to entertain herself for the next three or four hours. Sully and Courtney were probably somewhere among the scattered masses, with their tongues down each other's throat as they danced with the danger of possibly becoming another teen pregnancy statistic. Wait a minute, she was alone and armed with a needle and some heroin in the depths of her purse. There was a washroom stall with her name on it, screaming how she could make nice with her drug and everything could seem appealing once again. That seemed to be the ticket for joy this evening. With those sentiments in mind, she made her way through the club towards the washrooms as the sounds of the crowd chattering increased in volume. Before she knew it, Downtown Sasquatch was greeting the crowd with welcomes and the sounds of garage rock on stage. The sweltering humidity produced by the ever rising crowd brought a sweat to Emma's forehead. She had chosen an ideal time to make her appearance in the washroom. No true music fan would be caught dead missing precious moments of dancing and mosh pitting time near the stage to take care of nature's business and cosmetic imperfections. However, Emma was not a true music fan, so she had the right to care for her addiction as the band's music breathed into the club.  
  
The washroom door creaked open and was empty just as she presumed. Potent traces of cigarette smoke crawled into Emma's nose causing a cough to escape from her mouth. Probably about fifteen minutes ago or so, there were girls lining the mirrors as they glossed over their lips and painted their eyes with smoky shades of eye shadow. However all that remained of them was the stench of their cigarette smoke and the abandoned tube of cherry colored lipstick lying dead on the counter. Because of female instincts, Emma felt the need to gaze and analyze her reflection in the mirror that was smeared with eye pencil graffiti and fingerprints. Why would she want to call Heather Sinclair for a good time?  
  
After placing her hands firmly on the counter, she was met by her mirror encased clone that performed the same actions as she did. Straw blonde hair swam off into two separate streams that went down the sides of her face and flowed down her shoulders. Emma reached out and touched it as it fell limp in her hands. Her eyes hid the truth behind the dark smoky eye shadow and mounds of flesh covered foundation. The truth hidden beneath the lies was purple etched on her under eye area and constricted pupils. If the lies weren't there, someone would eventually put their mind to the task and figure out what was really going on. However, they'd just barely begin to scratch the surface. There was so much detail and so many subliminal messages in the story that no one knew about, including Emma. She couldn't manage to separate herself from the action because she was the action. So to separate herself from the action, she would have to somehow crawl out of herself and observe everything from an outsider's point of view.  
  
Emma gave herself a hard stare in the mirror. She felt herself slowly slipping away from sanity. It was probably due to the fact that the last time the drug had entered her veins was nine hours ago. Her arms were howling at her for her to just go into the handicapped stall and nourish them with the press of the needle against her skin. She let out a trembling sigh before dashing into the stall and slamming it behind her and locking it.  
  
Her pure and utter disgust for public washrooms was shoved aside as the craving was chasing her off of the cliff of sanity. She gave herself the assurance that the drug would satisfy her soon. Of course, she needed to perform all of the right preparations in order for everything to go as planned. It was a routine that she just went through the motions of doing, not thinking twice of it in the least. Each craving was her personal ringing timer of when to go through the motions. It seemed as though she was overdue.  
  
Emma plopped down on the freezing tile floor before her purse crashed to the ground. She quickly ripped off her long sleeve raven colored shirt and dropped it to the linoleum floor. Her red blotch painted arms were exposed. There was going to be a time that she would run of veins in her arms and have to resort to mutilating veins in other parts of her body. However, for now, it was just her arms that screamed that she was damaged goods. She worked the belt from the prison on her pants until she had captured it. Its use now was to be wrapped around the area of arm near her shoulder which would enable her to find an acceptable vein. With everything almost ready, she reached for the essential instruments that were scattered about her large crotched purse. She eventually snatched the small bag of heroin, a rusting spoon, and the messenger that went by the needle from the clutches of her bag.  
  
A small percentage of the flimsy plastic bag had been spilled strategically onto metal spoon as she handed it over into her left hand. In her right hand was the baby blue lighter with an orange flame waving to and fro as it made contact with the bottom of the slightly charred spoon. The heroin slowly eased out of its solid form and began to transform into a liquid form that could be easily stored in the needle for injection purposes. The needle kidnapped the liquid heroin and stuffed it within the walls of it. The liquid thrashed about as the tip of the needle danced upon the flesh surface of her arms, ready to pierce through the layers of numerous cells that were guarding the vein. The vein was the roadway that would transport the melted opiate throughout her body. A small piercing pain crawled up her arm as the metal tip shattered the three layers of skin that protected the vein. Heroin seeped into Emma's veins as she pushed down on the plunger. With the heroin having escaped from the needle, some of her own blood got trapped in the grasp of the syringe. The tip of the needle was pointed at the ceiling before she slammed on the end of the plunger and staining the white ceiling with the vermilion liquid.  
  
Her face slammed drifted against the toilet paper dispenser as everything seemed to melt into complete and utter perfection. Emma's eyes kept on closing shut before hazily reopening once more to gaze upon her stall enwrapped world. There was no reasoning behind why she should move from her spot on the floor because everything was just so comfortable. Besides, she was cemented into the dingy tile decorated floor. This was her temporary paradise until the next heroin high came along and whisked her off to the next paradise. It was an endless cycle.  
  
After her eyes closed tight for about the fifth time, they managed to crack completely open. As her glazed over eyes drank in her surroundings, there was something different in the stall. The difference was that the last time she had opened her eyes, she had been alone. Now she was accompanied by a tall very familiar figure that looked at her with a displeased and ashamed look plastered on their face. Emma slinked against the sheet rock wall as she continued to stare at the figure.  
  
"God, Emma, what happened to you," the masculine voice that accompanied the figure asked. Fear washed over her as her tired eyes became fixated on the person that hovered over her. Shallow breathing accompanied her horror as she gazed upon the figure that met her gaze with a disapproving frown.  
  
Her voice slurred, "What are you doing here?"  
  
The figure sighed, "Emma, please, tell me why you're doing this. You're driving your life into the ground and end up killing yourself or someone else in the process. You used to be such a helpful young woman and now...well...it's pretty obvious what you're doing."  
  
Emma continued to give the figure a horrified stare as the back of her head rested against the wall. She was entangled in a web of confusion as her eyes were still fixated on the figure who decided to sit with her on the floor after letting out a frustrated sigh. He shook his head as he looked at the articles of drug paraphernalia scattered about. As he slid over towards her as she backed up further into the wall, wishing it would swallow her up and carry her far away.  
  
"I can't say I didn't expect this," He sighed. "You did this to me when I started dating your mom, so this is déjà vu to me." His fingers brushed against her face as she pleaded for the wall to swallow her up. "Why are you throwing away your life, Emma? Why couldn't you be strong for your mother?"  
  
"Don't fucking touch me, Archie," She screeched with a slur. "I am not ruining my life, okay?! You already did that by dating my mother, getting her pregnant, and then marrying her! If you hadn't done that, then she wouldn't be spending her time staying as far away from our household as humanly possibly! Then she decided it would be such a great idea if she let her idiotic cousin take charge of household and run it into the fucking ground! I'm not doing anything at all! I'm just playing the shitty cards you dealt us by entering our life! So basically, I'm not the one to blame here, Archie!"  
  
Her hand swiped at him as she attempted to push him way. However, he didn't budge or react to her actions. He still sat with his long legs crossed and giving her a sympathetic yet disapproving look. Emma's eyes shot daggers at him as she reclined into the wall as she continued to wait for it to swallow her and transport her to another place.  
  
"Emma, please realize what you're doing," He pleaded. "You're practically a time bomb waiting to go off and I'm really terrified for you. I really wish I could help you." Her eyes couldn't bear to look at his supposedly sympathetic outlook. His absence was the cause for her problems, but he didn't seem to be able to put that through his mind. She glanced down at her hands before a hand wrapped around her wrist causing her to look up at the figure once more. His eyes were no longer sympathetic but cold and piercing.  
  
"Let go of me," She demanded as the hand continued to wrap around her bruise decorated wrist. Her eyes turned into slivers as she attempted to make everything disappear by the closing of her eyes. Paranoia shook her as she plucked the fingers from her wrist. The fingers wouldn't budge as she closed her eyes tighter in order to will everything away.  
  
"JUNKIE," the voice howled before the washroom stall door slammed and Emma opened up her eyes. The hallucinations of her deceased step dad ceased as she peered around her. Paranoia continued to flood her as she continued to peer around. There was probably some additive in the heroin that caused those horrible illusions. The possibility of slowly drifting off into the land of complete insanity never crossed her heroin subdued mind. Instead the yearning for something to alleviate the drying sensation throbbing in her mouth crossed her mind. Nothing happened. There were no hallucinations of Mr. Simpson advising her and her screeching at him. There weren't figments of her subconscious telling her that she had a problem because there was no problem. Everything was completely beautiful and beauty contained no problems. Therefore, nothing had happened and she wasn't losing grasp on her treasured sanity. If she blocked this horrid occurrence out of her memory, then it would disappear into oblivion.  
  
She released her arm from the grip of the belt and wove it back onto her pants. Her shirt was no longer a rag on the dingy tiles and now covered up the truth embedded in the redness of her arms. All of the drug paraphernalia that was scattered about was hidden among the other items in her purse. She groggily got up as she was drunk on confusion and delirium. The washroom stall door creaked as she saw a brunette applying a fresh coat of mascara to her already lengthy eyelashes.  
  
"Thank god I found you," Courtney sighed dramatically. "Spinner and Sully went temporarily insane and bought as much Dr. Pepper as they could after Spinner was done with the opening act. Then they chugged it all down and competed to see who could belch some David Bowie song the best." She rolled her chocolate brown eyes before slumping against the counter. "Ugh, men." She glanced over at Emma with a slightly concerned face. "Are you okay?"  
  
Emma's mind traced back to the hallucinations and the yelling. Emma Nelson wasn't on the brink of insanity. She was a strong and fortified structure that was anything but teetering. If she blocked the event out of her mind for long enough, then it would be erased from the history of events that were unfolding tonight. She had to reassure herself and the bimbo known as Courtney that she was very sane.  
  
"Just a little too strung," She admitted as she gripped the counter in order to keep her balance. "I'm fine though, perfectly fine."  
  
"That's good, I'll tell them I saw you, so no one thinks you were kidnapped or whatever," Courtney informed her before flouncing off in the direction of the washroom exit. Emma glanced at herself one more time. She looked up at her reflection greeting her in the mirror.  
  
"I'm fine, perfectly fine," She whispered to herself before rubbing her temples. "God, I need to be a bit more strung or else I'll go insane." Emma adjusted her purse strap that was clutching her shoulder before heading into another stall as the cravings appreciated getting another dose of heroin. With that extra dose, she would believe herself when she said that she wasn't insane. 


	10. The mess we made

Glass bottles lined shelves which were a part of the aisles which were a part of the liquor store on Seventh Avenue. The stench of old alcohol and strong air freshener emitting from the employee bathroom was enough to turn away anyone with a sober mind. If that hadn't done the trick, then the decaying floor tiles and paint chip decorated walls. However, those of the inebriated persuasion were drawn to the store like a moth to a fluorescent light hanging on a ceiling. The cheap prices made them flock to the Liquor Company while attempting not to crumble onto the pavement after a horrid stumble. However, even with a stumble, they still managed to extract a bit of satisfaction from their ordeal because they got what they had wanted, got it cheaply, and were on their way in no time at all.

The sounds of soft Oldies music soaked every square foot of the store. It was in a moment like this that Emma almost questioned why she had agreed to go to a rotting liquor store. However, "almost" was a huge word in that sentence. Because at times, Emma almost wondered why she did the things she did. However, deep down, she had reasons scrawled about in her thoughts. She just didn't dig those reasons up and let them fly about. Life was easier when you just went through the motions and didn't actually take the time to question anything. If you were to question anything, then your whole plan of just going through the motions was completely torn into little bite size pieces. Then everything you knew would be altered. Everything would be turned upside down.

So for an easy prevention, you just didn't question anything. You just went along being a complete zombie. Emma was a zombie whose cause of death was addiction to heroin. It was her manual and she knew it word by word. To question the text of the manual would be a complete sin.

"And we have the party essentials," she heard a voice that belonged to the person next to her say which snapped her back into general reality. In general reality, she was a liquor store ornament standing next to another ornament by the name of Spinner. In general reality, she was slowly fucking him over and neither of them realized it. In general reality, she was the subject of gossip at school. In general reality, she was the epitome of everything her former self hated. However, Emma decided that the concept known as general reality needed to be aborted. Her reality where everything made complete sense needed to be installed. Her thoughts and her opinions were the only things that caused her to make sense of the world around her. Therefore, everything was completely and utterly perfect. Nothing needed to be altered because she was living in the epitome of perfection.

"Now it would be a novel idea to get the party essentials into the car before Sully has a coronary," Emma replied simply to Spinner whose arms were hugging the party essentials. They were Sully's children. If Sully didn't get his children within the next five minutes to bring to the party that was taking place in an hour or so, then he would be a pissed off father.

Her legs carried her to the counter beside Spinner where a woman drenched in cigarette smoke asked for identification. A card identifying Spinner as Jack Richards was placed diligently on the cold counter drunk on March air. Emma's eyes were nowhere near the scene unfolding at the counter. Instead, her line of vision was shaking hands with a bag of beef jerky hanging near the various other bags of junk food about fifty feet away from the counter. For a second, she almost was taken down a winding road of being a vegetarian. It was ridiculous, how afraid Emma was to confront any sort of memory from the past. A new leaf had turned over. For the longest time, she had been slowly drifting down the path that led her to her current day situation. It was unclear whether it started with the diagnosis that Snake's cancer had come back or when that last breath escaped his lips. Whatever moment it was, it was defining. Or maybe because the moment that was supposed to be defining couldn't be decided upon, it wasn't as defining as it was thought out to be.

A movie that Emma had seen when she was younger was fitting of her situation to a degree. There was a girl in it, a girl who was a princess. She was the prime example of royalty and was placed on a pedestal that someone would want to throw her off of. Everything about her animated but very loosely based on a real story life just screamed wonderful. She lived with her wonderful royal family in a wonderful palace and deeply missed her wonderful grandmother when she would go to France. However, everything crashed to the ground when a magical man whose desire was to push the wonderful family off of their pedestal was filled. The wonderful girl tried to escape the pandemonium with her wonderful grandma on a train but the girl slipped and fell to the unforgiving ground and hit her wonderful head. Before she knew it, she wasn't wonderful anymore. She didn't remember the eight years of being wonderful. She only knew of the now where she wasn't wonderful. Where she was scum and belittled by everyone.

And Emma didn't even remember the name of the girl and the name of her movie. Maybe the girl wasn't as high on a list of importance if Emma couldn't even remember her name. Maybe it was dose after dose of illicit drugs plunging into her system that was a gigantic eraser to her basin of knowledge. Maybe she just didn't care about anything any more. Everything was so trivial. Everything was so petty in the long run. Everything was just absolutely nothing. Everything was just dead, like she was.

"Dude, Emma," the voice trickled into her ear and allowed for her to soak general reality back in. It took her a moment to realize the fact that she had been transported outside into the brisk March air that was whirring around her. Her shoe encased feet were carrying her towards Sully's car while Spinner walked beside her. Through the glass shards on the car called windows, Emma could see that it was quite obvious that Sully hadn't been really cared about how long she and Spinner were gone in the grimy liquor store for. She glanced at her companion beside her and proceeded to roll her eyes.

"I can't believe he hasn't dumped her ass by now," Emma stated blandly. "This must be a new record for him."

Spinner laughed, "Dude, he hasn't dumped that chick he's been banging from the community college yet either. I think we have another Craig on our hands."

"Won't it be hilarious if they found out about the other," Emma chimed in a mischievous tone. The drama of Sully was something that was a form of sick amusement to Emma and Spinner. They had a backstage pass. They knew the workings of what was going on with him, considering he practically got on a loud speaker and boasted about his personal life. Everything with Sully was a game. It was a game that he would always win and then shove his winnings into everyone's faces. If everything had fallen apart and his two fuck buddies had discovered the existence of the other, Sully didn't care. He plastered on his twisted optimistic outlook and simply stated that he had fun while the whole game had lasted. Then, he would dust himself off and look for the dice in order to start his little game allover again.

"We'd need a big thing of popcorn," Spinner nodded before Emma glanced at him and saw the desire for the butter laced snack fill his eyes. It was obvious Spinner hadn't become a complete zombie just yet. He had glimmers of himself that hadn't been cracked yet. He was still real and pure, unlike Emma. Emma was tainted. The people that were important to her in her old life seemed to have picked up on this. Liberty would give her a belittling glance in the hallway and remind her of her scum position in the world. Toby was too wrapped up in his academic tizzies to attempt to put together the thousand piece puzzle. Manny had strayed over to the dark side with Paige, probably spending her days in Paige's room giggling and feeding her embarrassing tidbits about Emma. The only one who hadn't completely exiled her was JT.

If anyone needed to be awarded the most loyal friend award by the academy, it would have to be JT Yorke. He stuck to his friends like fly paper. Even though he brought out the yearning to strangle him in even the most tolerant person at times, he was loyal and would go to the ends of the earth to salvage a friendship he cherished dearly. Emma knew he was trying to do that with her at the moment. He'd try to reach out and scoop her into his hand so he could hold onto their twelve year friendship. However, Emma unintentionally swatted his hands away. She didn't want to be bothered with him. So now she was in the process of cutting away her last lifeline to the world she used to be a part of. A small part of her wanted to go back to that life. But she couldn't go back. She had left a simple mess behind there when she had just plain left. That mess was something she did not want to acknowledge at all. Besides, if she left this life to go back to the other one, then she'd have a mess to clean up in this life as well. Either way, she was tangled in a lose-lose situation. There was no winning. There was only the need for survival.

"It's about fucking time," a deep voice snapped impatiently. Emma almost asked why in the world he cared. He was probably too busy attempting to get laid in the front seat of his classy BMW to honestly care about alcohol. The cares of Sully consisted of himself, cocaine, and sex. He was a people pleasing jerk off who tried to come off as charismatic and somehow succeeded with those of the naïve and moronic persuasion. Due to the single shred of humanity Emma had left, she couldn't bare to see someone such as Courtney get completely screwed over by him. At the same time, she knew deep inside that it was Courtney's fault that she had somehow managed to get herself into her current situation. Again, another lose-lose situation. Story of Emma's life.

Spinner groaned, "Calm the hell down, we got your beloved alcohol which you already have a shit load of anyway."

Emma and Spinner slid into the backseat of the car after the alcohol was tentatively placed in the trunk of the car. Sully began rambling about what the point of buying a variety alcoholic was, which Emma tended to block out. His prick personality and mentality made her want to scream if she actually cared about anything pertaining to Sully unless it directly pertained to her. He was a minor character in the movie of her life, providing annoyance and comedy at the right moments. He was an unnecessary addition that came along with Spinner once Emma had acquired him. However, acquiring Spinner was practically the same as acquiring an allergy of some sorts.

It only took a short period of time for Spinner to reveal his true colors. He was everything that got underneath Emma's skin and made her cringe. His stupidity made her question the demise of the world. His complete arrogance made her want to scream. There were other countless qualities that Spinner possessed that made her want to stab something, preferably him. However, that was the beauty of Spinner. His horrid qualities while being cringe worthy was at the same time, incredibly endearing. They intoxicated Emma to the point where he no longer pissed her off to such a large extreme. Unbeknownst to him, he had an all access card to Emma. He could use her but she was weighed down by extreme misery that she got a sick satisfaction out of being used. He was the source of her perfection which he dealt to her. He could do whatever he wanted, but guilt would weigh her down. She always felt as though she owed him some sort of debt.

Her head rested against the window as the images of the outside world streamed past the car. A mixture of the hazy March atmosphere and buzzing traffic created one of those scenes that Emma just wanted to freeze so she could analyze every aspect of it. However, she was in a moving car with a suctioned hand on her sweat pant covered thigh. The urge bubbled inside her for her to pluck Spinner's grimy hand off before telling him to get the fuck away her from her. However, her stash was near complete depletion and she was in need of a fix right now. Her arms ached to be poked and prodded with a needle and her mind yearned for a rush of endorphins to paint her a picture of sanity. Sanity was something she desperately required at the moment.

A few moments later, the car pulled up at the sprawling and extravagant upper Suburban neighborhood home that belonged to Sully. At the moment, Emma was in no mood to be in a room with a bunch of idiots from school, the same place she tried to avoid as much as humanly possible. However, Emma did not want go back to her home. The minute she heard her mother utter something about a possible date next week, Emma knew she had to head for the hills. Something inside her ignited and screeched at her to just get out of the house before she ran herself into a heroin deficit. Right on cue, she had received a call from Spinner stating that Sully had gotten the bright idea of throwing a party. However, she didn't want to attend said party but she didn't want to go home and inject happiness to replace her anger and depression. So, she made a compromise with herself. She'd somehow manage to get a fix and then wander on back home...or maybe not. But no, she'd probably end up sticking around and being half of one huge hypocritical mess.

The four made their way into the spacious house as a brunette girl who appeared a tad younger than Sully exited at a lightning speed. Emma glanced at her for a minute, almost examining her, as she tried to somehow place a name with a face. After a few seconds of trying, she slowly realized that the name of the girl and her relationship with Sully wasn't of any importance to her at the moment.

"Marla, where the hell are you going," Sully asked the girl dryly. She rolled her eyes at him before her mouth cracked open to let out a response.

"Considering I'd rather die than be at your lame party which the cops will be thrilled coming to, I'm leaving," Marla stated in a rather bitchy tone in her high pitched voice. "And if I find anyone naked in my bed, mom and I are going to have a little chat."

The brunette girl practically sprinted down the sidewalk to a destination that was more ideal than a party with a bunch of drugged idiots. Emma glanced around confusedly. The moment of confrontation between the two siblings was abrupt and spontaneous, something that would stir up a sense of confusion in any person, even those of the non-drug addict persuasion. She heard Sully muttering something about his younger sister being a "dumb bitch" before hauling ass out of the foyer and into the interior of the extravagant house. Courtney trailed behind him like a lost puppy as Spinner went in a completely opposite direction. Emma leaned against the off-white wall before sliding down it until her body shook hands with the burgundy carpet. She didn't feel like moving. Moving had absolutely no purpose at this moment considering her seller of happiness was off doing god knows what. She clasped her hands together before wringing them rapidly. She needed to travel to another place, but obviously she couldn't do it alone. She was completely hopeless in that realm. She was a hopeless fuck that no one wanted to be redeemed. Redemption was a complete joke considering she didn't deserve it. It was like going to a food bank when you're filthy rich.

The sounds of booming obnoxious laughter trickled through her ears from another corner of the gigantic house. Emma glanced down at her hands as she continued wringing them, but now at a quicker pace. A few strands of greasy blonde hair crawled out of her ponytail and walked across her face as she continued to watch her withered hands closely. Then she clasped them together tightly as if she was protecting her palms from foreign invasion. The tips of her fingers turned a screaming rose color as the rest of her hands turned a dead white. Her head smashed against the wall as her eyes started to try to follow the noise pollution that was hiding. Emma didn't want to bask in her collective depression and silent anger any longer, so she made her way lethargically up the wooden staircase.

As she strolled idly around the upstairs department of the O'Sullivan household, she sensed the vacancy that was currently brewing inside of her. In a sober state of mind, the vacancy roared to be filled. The vacancy wasn't a vacancy at all though. It was a vast depression that had been created as everything started almost a year ago...when everything started to shatter completely...

Emma bit her lip, trying to stomp the thoughts, as if they were on fire. Thinking about the events of last March would be disastrous; she needed to cleanse her mind of them. With that, she slowly entered into Sully's bedroom in search of something that would be of great use to her at the moment and then slammed the door behind her.

The room had a stale quality to it. She assumed that it was due to the door probably being closed tight all of the time; the events unfolding behind it were something that she would have severely disapproved of back in the day. However, they barely fazed her in the least anymore. She had adopted that sinful routine and kept it snugly under her wing since. A part of the sinful routine was to cover your wounds so no one could detect them. And you could cover your wounds by any means necessary. With that in mind, Emma found herself scrounging through a wooden dresser drawer for a sock that contained a baggie that contained several joints full or marijuana. A dull sense of joy floated over her as she found the sock she had been searching for. She stuffed a few of the joints in her sweatshirt pockets before carelessly tossing the sock back into the dresser drawer and slamming it shut. She found a red lighter on the top of the dresser and adopted it has her own. But before the adoption papers went through, she took one of the joints and put the screaming orange flame to it before taking a hit.

The loud bass of the expensive living room stereo pulsated every wall of the O'Sullivan house as Emma plopped herself on Sully's unmade bed and blankly stared out the window. The blustery March winds kicked around naked tree branches like the feet of boys to soccer balls. It was such a serene setting with the exception of the thrashing and less than peaceful sounds of Nirvana in the background. Rape me, screamed Kurt Cobain repetitively. Like everything else, Emma put a barrier between herself and the early nineties grunge music in order to attempt to get herself at peace. However, that seemed impossible as the hollering of party goers aerated throughout. The marijuana toxins sank into her blood as she attempted to extract as much relaxation as she could from a single joint. Her only way of possibly rendering herself sane was to get stoned out of her mind. She was medicating herself and chasing all of her demons away. This was the only way she could function. However, she was barely functioning. Marijuana got beaten horribly by heroin in a duel. But she had some small thread to hold onto. There was some silver lining.

Time melted away quickly yet steadily. The only way Emma could measure it was by craning her neck to see the neon green numbers on the alarm clock placed on the nightstand. However, effort had escaped her as it fled the scene. Nirvana continued to pound in the background like the worst migraine headache a person ever experienced. She just wanted relaxation, was that so incredibly demanding of her? Not that she cared at all. The pot had kidnapped that away from her. Suddenly, her attention was diverted to the creaking of the door behind her. A series of coughs joined the smoke filtering through the room.

"I'm guessing this isn't the bathroom," the voice announced dryly masking embarrassment.

Emma laughed before replying, "Great job. The bathroom is...how the fuck am I supposed to know?" She managed to rotate her head to see who she was talking to through blood shoot and droopy eyes. She laughed bitterly as realization pounded her concerning who had discovered her in an exposed state.

"Okay, am I dreaming or are you really stoned off your ass," JT asked sarcastically before pausing for a moment. "And what I've known as reality has been completely screwed up."

Emma sent a blank stare in his direction. She couldn't even try to recall the last time JT and her even acknowledged the other. Their friendship seemed to be a fire that was slowly dying and that no one could start up again. Not that she honestly cared about that at the moment. She had trashed the friendship immensely and there was no going back, though he attempted to attempt to breathe life into it.

"Um, terrific," Emma replied insipidly. "You look like you've seen a ghost, JT." She laughed bitterly once again. Her marijuana laced mind interpreted this situation to be dripping with absolute hilarity. Logic and morals were part of a galaxy far away that Emma had once heard of but had completely forgotten about.

JT blatantly ignored the ghost comment before speaking up, "You know what? I really don't have to go to the bathroom anymore. I'm going...far away."

He then whirled around before making a break for the seemingly normal party stirring downstairs. For some reason that Emma's mind managed to churn out, she followed him like a dense lost uncoordinated puppy. As she trailed behind him, they passed various couples tentatively groping one another while grunge music continued to play in the background. Craig had probably switched David Bowie with Nirvana while Sully was too busy doing god knows what that didn't include protecting his precious and expensive stereo system. Her game of following JT around like she was magnetically attracted to him was interrupted by Spinner who was stoned, drunk, or strung out to the highest degree. Or it was a possible combination of the three.

"Where have youuuu been, man," Spinner managed to spit out even though it seemed to be the most difficult task known to mankind. He rested his drugged head on Emma's shoulder as she became incredibly disgusted by him but lacked the effort to shove his head off.

"Uh...not here," Emma replied with a raised eyebrow. "Where have _you_ been?" She brought the joint she had carried with her to her lips again. Somehow the hope of drifting away from this mess permeated through her brain with the hit that she had taken.

"Here," Spinner stated as if it were the most obvious answer in the world because it was. Soon, their stimulant abusing philandering friends also known as Craig and Sully strolled over to them, not very deep in conversation. That wasn't a surprise considering Sully was coked out until next Tuesday and methamphetamine had seemed to induce something similar to ADD in Craig. Sully was rambling about how his stupid bitch of a girlfriend had dumped his ass publicly some time ago. Not that Emma gave him sympathy or anything because he didn't deserve it. However, she had grown immune to Sully constantly bitching about god knows what. She had grown immune to Craig spacing out at the drop of a hat. It was all part of the cycle of chaos that she was currently a part of. That she had painted for herself out of starvation for some kind of vice. The words thrown back and forth between the drugged trio of guys went around her and didn't hit her. She was in another place.

"Aw, Jim, look what we have here," a rather bitchy female voice popped into Emma's ears. "It's a meeting of Skanky Losers Anonymous."

"Upchuck, why don't you do us a favor and go take a leaping jump off my roof," Sully suggested in his usual bastardly cocaine intoxicated tone. Emma managed to crane her head and was unpleasantly greeted with Paige Michalchuk and Jimmy Brooks, who looked annoyed with Paige at the moment. As did probably anyone else she dragged along with her like her own personal rag doll.

Jimmy spoke up in a tone thatresembled that ofan annoyed father trying to get small children to stop bickering. "Guys, quit it. C'mon, Paige, let's go."

"Dude, are you guys here...together," Spinner asked as he made a whispy hand gesture symbolizing togetherness. He laughed. "Dude! What about...Hazel?" Obviously not hanging around Jimmy for sometime resulted in Spinner not being able to remember the name of Jimmy's girlfriend. If he still had one that is.

"Ha, make sure Hazel doesn't find out, Brooks," Craig piped in. "Or you'll be in a heap of shit." Jimmy raised an eyebrow in confusion. Obviously he was not accustomed to hanging out with people who were constantly drugged out of their minds.

"Sorry to uh, ruin this little moment but Jim and I need to go unless we want to catch your stupidity," Paige snapped before attempting to drag the basketball player behind her. He rolled his eyes before he accepted his fate as being Paige's toy for the evening. He was probably telling Paige off at this point, saying not to bother with them. How nice it must be, to have someone as caring as Jimmy Brooks as your friend, boyfriend, or fuck buddy. To have someone who didn't use you for money or for sex. To have someone that was probably the only shred of sanity left in the pits of hell known as Degrassi Community School.

Sully made the idiotic decision of shouting, "Aw, now Brooks can go have fun shacking up the rape victim."

Almost as fast as a flash of a camera, Jimmy whirled around and started stalking towards Sully. Now Paige was being a stray alley cat and following briskly after Jimmy. Before anyone knew it, Jimmy started pummeling Sully. He had transformed into one giant fist that would paint bruises and draw blood from various parts on Sully's body. The shred of normalcy had turned into a shred of normalcy in need of anger management classes. Paige shrieked and tried to get them to stop. She shrieked and attempted to persuade but her yells were unheard over the sounds of flesh beating flesh. Spinner and Craig became bystanders to the event as Emma walked away from it. In the distance, they were more likely to be mistaken for beer chugging pot bellied football patrons rather than teenage drug addicts. A mismatched orchestra of fighting, shrieking, and cheering formed as Emma continued to walk away from fiasco. It was then that she found herself against the wall she had started against earlier that night. However, this time, she wasn't alone.

"Swell company you keep, Em," she heard JT say to her. "Real winners you picked." He patted her should before departing towards the kitchen. She glanced at Jimmy walking away from the mess he had probably thought he had created. He was probably worn down my guilt. In actuality, it was Emma who had unintentionally created such a warped mess. She had gotten involved in this whole scheme that Sully and Spinner were already a part of. She wasn't so sure about Craig. But still, her entrance had created a ripple effect. She had made such an effect on everything. That was illustrated to her as Paige and Jimmy walked by her as Jimmy held his nose and muttered something.

She then glanced over at Sully who was barking something at Spinner and Craig. What swell company she did keep.

And what a mess she had made.


End file.
